Category Archives: writing

writing

Free Fiction Fridays

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Last Friday I decided to try an experiment. I gave away a Smashwords coupon to my mini-“anthology” consisting of two stories; “Piercing the Veil” and “Vicious Cycle”. I’m the kind of person that does things like that a little impulsively and right after I released the coupon I did some thinking.

My first question was, “What am I trying to accomplish?”. I want to get more eyes on my stories at this point. I’m fighting some degree of obscurity (for large values of obscurity), and if giving some stuff away helps overcome that then I’m all for it. However, I know that there are people out there who believe in my and want to support my work financially. So I give them ample opportunity to do that by offering my works for sale at as many venues as possible.

When I tweeted last night that I was going to do another Free Fiction Friday today and wanted to know what people wanted me to give away, I got some push back. The objection seemed to boil down to, “if I buy your work and three days later you’re giving it away, I’ll feel cheated”. There was also the notion that if someone knew I was going to do this every week they’d just wait and get what I had for free.

I understand both sets of feelings. My own thoughts on the matter are this though, if I’m supporting an author financially and they decide to put something on sale or give it away then I should respect that. They, no doubt, have reasons for doing what they’re doing. I pay money for stories because I want that person to continue being able to make stories and because I believe in them. Sometimes I even buy things that I’m not otherwise interested in, simply to enable someone to make something cool. Case in point, JR Blackwell’s LARP game Shelter in Place. I’m unlikely to ever play it. I like zombies, but I’m not a LARPer. I backed her Kickstarter campaign anyway.

If someone wants to wait until I put something out for free, for whatever reason, to download it, that doesn’t hurt my feelings. Their reasons are their own, and I made the conscious decision to give it away so they’re not pirating and my being put out would be silly. The only thing that bothers me is the notion that someone wouldn’t buy one of my stories (that presumably they were going to buy at some point) simply because I want to try using a loss leader to bring in more eyes.

So, if you think this is a dumb idea or that ultimately it’s going to hurt me more than help me, I really am interested in hearing what you have to say in more detail than Twitter will allow. I plan on doing giveaways of my short fiction only on Fridays for the next couple of weeks at least, maybe longer if it turns out to be helpful. But if there’s sound logic that I’m overlooking then I’m game to listen.

fiction, writing

Here There Be Dragons – Pt. 1

This story takes place in the same universe as X Marks the Spot and will be my own take on a super hero universe. It will owe a little bit to the Wild Cards series of books. This is a WIP and is covered by the Creative Commons License below.

I locked up the door on Mr. Looper’s PC Emporium and jumped as high as I could, snagging the gate and using my body wait to pull it down. With it locked in place, I knew that it was as safe as any store in this neighborhood could be. In spite of the fact that this was a computer store, most of the stuff he carried was way old. He tinkered with his stock and fixed any electronics that customers brought in. No matter how useless or broke down the TV, radio, or remote controlled car was, he was always able to coax life out of it.

I pulled my black nylon jacket’s collar up around my neck to try and keep warm. If I hurried I could make the three blocks home before it got dark. This was the Dragon’s turf and anyone caught out in it after dark, especially a girl my age, was like fresh meat. If we didn’t need the money I wouldn’t clean Mr. Looper’s store, no matter how much he paid me and he payed me way too much.

Mom thought he wanted something more than money. She’d never say that to my face, but I’ve heard her end of phone calls. She’s also always asking me how the old man makes me feel or if he ever touches me. I don’t think she knows that at thirteen I know what she’s asking and it made me sick to think about it. He never did and I don’t think he even has thoughts like that. He doesn’t like people much. Oh he treated his customers and me well enough, but he loved his machines.

Wind picked at my jacket and cut through the legs of my skinny jeans. We moved to North Carolina from New Jersey five years ago, but the winters are still pretty cold, even this far south. I broke into a jog, hoping it would warm me up. It almost had too, until I heard the whooping and jeering from up ahead. I knew that it was a group of the Dragons. They weren’t a real gang, not like the Ochos or the Strangers. Mostly, they were just older teens who smoked dope and stole lunch money from younger kids. Ricardo, whose brother was an Ocho, said that they couldn’t cut it in an actual brotherhood, but wanted the excuse to act tougher than they were.

I didn’t know about that. I’d known a few kids that got their share of bruises and cuts, and while Mr. Looper might not be interested in my girlhood, these boys might be. It wasn’t much further to get home, but going the long way around I’d risk running into some tougher groups. There was no safety except to go back to the store. Mr. Looper lived above it and I could probably get him to take her home, or at least she could call Dad to come and get her when he got home.

I hated to bother him, but he had invited me upstairs once or twice early on for cookies. Thinking about Mom’s advice, I said no, respectfully, and it never came up again. I think he knew why I said no, cause he looked a little embarrassed and sad.

I hurried, but the wind was in my face. It seemed to be blowing faster, making it hard to take steps. I didn’t weight much and the spaces between buildings focused the winds. That must have been why I didn’t hear the voices behind me. I didn’t know there were Dragons behind me until one grabbed my arm.

Go to part two.

Creative Commons License
Here There Be Dragons by Scott Roche is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.scottroche.com.

pimpage, writing

Contest Update!

So here’s where we’re at contest-wise. Thanks to a couple of generous (and lovely) young ladies (and some other folks I don’t know) I have crossed the halfway point and am at fourteen sales. Only one of those ladies has sent her receipts in. So, if we do cross the twenty-seven sales line by the end of the month, she’s a dead lock to get the paperback proof of Through a Glass, Darkly

I’ve Tweeted and Facebooked and blogged about it. I’ve had people share and RT my contest. I’ve put the word on on MobileRead.com’s Forums as well as the Kindleboards. I’ve also shared it on the Kindle Facebook fan page. I’ll continue to use these methods and any others I can come up with. I’m still running into people that don’t know I’ve put stuff on Amazon and that I have a print anthology available, so I’m not reaching everyone I can. Thanks to Amazon’s limited reporting tools, I don’t know if people are downloading the samples (you can get samples of most any Amazon Kindle books delivered right to your device) or not. If you haven’t taken advantage of the samples at least, please do so. If you have and you’re just not compelled, I’d actually like to hear that.

There are still ten days left in the month. This has only gone for seven days, so there’s plenty of time. You don’t have to buy all six stories to be entered. If you’d just like to send me the money for a signed copy of the print book I can arrange that. Any help you lovely people can give me in this effort is appreciated. Blog, Tweet, and Facebook about it. Tell your friends. And for those that have done that, a great big thanks!

writing

Bobby and His Dragon

I’m trying out some direct sales through this site in preparation for Ginnie Dare and some other projects. So in order to test this I’ll be offering a cute little middle grades level story I’ve written that’s available nowhere else. It’s only $.49 for a story that clocks in at 3400 words. Well worth it in my opinion.

I also made the e-pub myself so I’m a bit proud of that.

A preview for those who’d like one:
Continue reading Bobby and His Dragon →

writing

Contest!

I really want to triple my sales from last month. I also want to know who’s out there buying my stories. So let’s see if I can kill two birds with one stone, shall we?

I’m getting a proof copy of this anthology in a few days. For every story you buy from here between now and the end of March, you will get one entry. Just email me at scott at scottroche.com and attach an electronic copy of your receipt from Amazon. All entries will go into a hat (possibly a real hat, possibly an electronic one) and I will draw a name. That person will receive a signed, personalized copy of the proof copy. This will be the only one of its kind in existence and will be worth at least as much as the paper it’s printed on for generations to come. The only catch? If I don’t sell at least twenty seven stories, I keep the book. There needs to be some incentive to stop my Mom from being the only winner. 😉

Simple enough? Now go forth and buy!

pimpage, writing

E-book Week Results

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This past week I gave away over two hundred stories as a part of Smashwords celebrating Read An E-book Week. I figured I’d share the results with you guys since that was pretty phenomenal in my mind. There are now two hundred copies of my stories in the wild and I hope that will lead to people coming back for more.

“Fetch” and “The Behemoth” were certainly the most popular. Only two copies of “The Battle of Wildspitze” were sold but it didn’t come out until late in the week and was not part of the giveaway. I guess people were attracted to the cover, blurb, and/or genre of those two big movers most. The reviews may have also been significant. That’s hard to say.

I do hope that if you were one of the folks who took advantage that you’ll remember to drop a review. They do help people to make the decision to buy. That’s part of the reason I did this, to see if it would generate some feedback and drive future sales. Sales haven’t been phenomenal there or at Amazon. I tweeted last night, tongue in cheek, that I tripled my January sales in February (moving from three sales to nine sales) and that I’d like to do that again in March. That would mean twenty seven sales and given that I’ve sold one this month that would mean needing to sell almost two a day for the rest of the month. That would be unprecedented, but it’s not out of the ball park.

I’ve got four stories and two collections up there right now. “Through A Glass, Darkly” combines “Fetch“, “Power in the Blood“, “The Good Doctor“, and a new one “The Good Samaritan” into one file for $2.99. If I could sell fifteen to twenty of those this month that would be awesome. It’s not a bad deal either considering “Fetch” and “Power” together would be $3.50. Those are two of my most well received stories and the other two would be icing on the cake. “The Good Samaritan” is the lead off story and if you download the sample from Amazon you’d get a good taste of that one.

So, please spread the word and help me meet this goal. Two a day for the next two weeks! If you’ve already read any of these stories it would help my goal to get a review on any of the ones on Amazon.

pimpage, writing

Read An E-book Week

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In celebration of “Read An E-book Week” if you go to Smashwords you can get any of my e-pubs for free. Don’t have an e-reader? You can read them all online or download them as PDFs. Coupon codes are available on each story’s page.

This is a promotional effort by Smashwords to encourage people to embrace the format and let people know about the awesome content out there. This promotion only lasts til the end of the week so don’t wait!

writing

Archangel Reboot

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You may have heard of this podcast novel I wrote called Archangel? It’s got a list of supporters long enough to please me, but I’ve gotten some feedback on it and as any first novel does it’s not without it’s problems. I basically “pantsed” the whole thing and now that I’ve got some experience I know that it shows in the work’s structure. I’ve gotten some very good feedback and have decided to take a whack at rewriting it. I’ll be using the snowflake method as I did with Ginnie Dare, but with this as with Liquid Diet I will be doing a more full blown version of it.

I want to finish both rough drafts by the end of the summer and have finished novels by years end. Will snowflaking let me write like a meth cranked ninja? Is that a good thing? Well I guess we’ll find out.

Anyway, here are steps one and two of the snowflake for Archangel’s reboot:

1) Former soldier defends his city from supernatural evil at the cost of all he holds dear.

2) A former army sniper, discharged after a particularly odd final mission, tries to enjoy his retirement in peace. All of that changes when he meets a local business man whose activities have a dark and supernatural edge to them. When going to the police doesn’t help, he decides to use his skills to track the man and ultimately take him down whatever the consequences. Unfortunately the consequences involve an escalation that threatens the lives of everyone he loves and the very fabric of reality. His friends and family join him in the fight, but will it be enough to quench the fires of Hell?

writing

Part-time Vampire

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I plan on building two “snowflakes” this month in an effort to finish three novels by year’s end. It’s ambitious, but I already have one “in the can”. It’s still being edited, but I must continue writing, even while that one is cooling and being beta read.

This is made somewhat easier by my choice of topics. One of them will be a ground up rewrite of the first two Archangel novels. I’m shooting to make that one solid novel and rather than edit it, I really feel it would be easier/better to reboot it. The other choice was what I thought was going to be a short story I started on thanks to “News From Poughkeepsie”. Called “A Liquid Diet”, it involves a slightly different take on vampires, at least I hope so.

Here are steps one and two of the snowflake method for “Liquid Diet”:

1) Police detective and part time vampire, tries to track down a serial killer who may be targeting her.

2) A small portion of humanity, called “Schrecks”, are able to ingest human blood and gain strength, health, and nearly superhuman abilities. A Schreck police detective, one of the few that hates her “gift”, inherits a series of cases involving women who look just like her. Every one of them is found dead apparently at the hands of one of her “kind”. Finally a solid lead materializes, only to have the first real suspect turn up missing. The evidence in this missing person’s case points to a “real” vampire and it’s up to Sam to find out if such a thing is even possible and catch it. If she can’t everyone like her is liable to find themselves on the point of a stake, if the killer doesn’t get to her first.

Let me know what you think and keep kicking my butt if you want to see this written!

writing

The Price is Right

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I had an interesting Twitter discussion this weekend that involved e-book pricing. It’s on my mind a lot really what with me having a new book coming out in May. I had five dollars set as the soft price in my mind based on a few things I read in this post. I felt (and still feel) that this is a fair price point for a book in the sixty-thousand word range.

There are a number of people who disagree with me though. Brand Gamblin (an author whose work I will pimp without fail) posted recently about his experiment in advertising and his decision to drop the price on Tumbler from $4.99 to $2.99. He points to JA Konrath’s ongoing experiments in e-book pricing as well as data from Evil Genius Dave Slusher’s graphs and charts as the reason for this decision. Brand has been well pleased by the results, the increase in sales more than making up for the decrease in profit. While Brand isn’t saying that there’s anything “magical” about $2.99 (the biggest thing driving that price point is that it’s the lowest you can charge through Amazon to make 70% profit) and that not every book should be priced at that point, he is saying that that’s probably what I should charge.

Several people in my Twitter stream expressed a concern that I was letting a notion of what my book is “worth” in an artistic sense cloud my judgment in terms of the price I’m setting. They believe in me in some sense and in my work and want me to maximize my profits. I appreciate that concern and it doesn’t fall on deaf ears. I certainly want to make money on this deal and I want to both maximize the total profit and get this into the hands of the highest number of people possible. So I don’t have any high flung notions that my work is “worth” five bones. The notion of worth as Ed Talbot pointed out is philosophical and largely depends on how you’re measuring it.

So far a number of people have stepped onto the pre-sale band wagon, six to date, and gave me varying chunks of their hard earned dollars. Four have opted for the highest level of support, one at the ten dollar level and one at fifteen. To them, the idea and the reality of my work is “worth” the price that they paid. To say I am grateful is a wild understatement. I am also grateful to folks that have ponied up anywhere from $.99 to $1.99 for my offerings on Amazon and Smashwords. Their payments for my stories have meant far more to me than the coin I received. The accolades I’ve received from reviewers likewise made my day/week/month. That out of the way though, I need to look at this as a business man would. I’m not a business man at heart, but as Dan Sawyer’s often said to me (paraphrasing) authors/aritsts need to train themselves up that way.

I’ve read the threads on Kindleboards and I’ve looked on Amazon’s lists and the pricepoint that makes the most sense to me is the $2.99 one. I don’t have the researchers that publishers do, but there are a few things I know. I don’t have the following that Nathan Lowell does. People aren’t clamoring for this book. I’m a completely unknown author to 99.999% of the universe out there. So I need to make my prose as compelling as possible and price it reasonably. I won’t give it away (at least not in text form) since I think it is worth something and based on a number of things I’ve read, free e-books languish unread in their owners’ readers. I also don’t see charging less than $2.99 for it since, while it may increase sales (or it may not depending on who you listen to) I don’t think the subsequent cut in percentage will make it worth while.

The question of what to charge for the paperback version still looms large in my mind. I have the pre-sale levels set at five and ten for e-book and paperback versions respectively and I don’t see that I’ll lower those. That means if you’ve made the decision to support me already, you’ve likely paid more than you would have had you waited. And it may mean that if you were going to pre-order that you’ll wait til it’s out. I can’t fault you if you ask for a refund or if you wait until the launch. My hope is that you’ll support me anyway and that you’ll feel like you’ve gotten your money’s worth at the “full price”.

As always, feel free to share your comments below and tip your servers well!