Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Where oh where is WALDO?!?!

Okay, this has nothing to do with Waldo.  Sorry.  Carmen San Diego, maybe?  Nope-nope.  Sorry again.

It's been about a month since I self-published my first two novels.  THE COMING has started to appear in a number of different places, and THE MENGELE EFFECT should be showing up soon.  Here's where they're available:

THE COMING


Promotional Video
Smashwords
Barnes & Noble
Amazon
Kobo Books
Diesel eBook Store

THE MENGELE EFFECT


Promotional Video
Smashwords

Also, don't forget to check out my web page, where you can read excerpts of my two upcoming novels, SKINNER and JEREMY...and leave a note to tell me what you think!

Friday, January 27, 2012

Self-Publishing? Really? You MUST be kidding me...

Almost one month ago, I did something I thought I'd never do...I self-published.  Why?  My reason is quite simple, but requires a little explanation.  So...strap in, 'cause  it's STORY TIME!

Once upon a time, there was a lonely Major stationed in the middle of Alaska on a remote tour (away from his wife & kids for a year) who'd just finished reading a very, very, VERY poorly written paperback book.  As a matter of fact, it plain S-U-C-K-E-D; the writing was tough to follow, what was intended to be scary was silly, and the entire printed mess left a bad taste in the reader's mental mouth.  P'TOOEY!  So, that lonely Major decided right then that if an author like the person who'd written that book could get published, then...so...could...he!  I've got tons of stories in my misshapen noggin, he thought.  Time to start writing!

So, me--the lonely Major--hopped on his creaky Acer Pentium 75 computer at ~11 o'clock PM & started writing the first draft of what would eventually become a first novel--THE COMING.  That was April of 2001.  I finished the novel in late 2002 (700+ double-spaced pages).  The first query letters went out in January 2003.  Rejection letters followed.  As the years went by, about 100 or so found my mailbox.  All writers despise rejections (unless they offer constructive criticism); one special rejection I received was dated the day before I sent my query (which may be proof that Einstein's entire time-space-continuum thing is dead wrong).  I loved that one.  No agent took my bait, except for a nibble from Ms. Ann Collette of the Helen Rees Literary Agency, who showed enough interest to go back-and-forth with me for about two years, critiquing, editing, and offering suggestions...but, never taking me on.  After she misplaced two full manuscripts I'd sent, though, I knew it was time to say thanks for the help and move on.  Ann taught me some valuable lessons about cutting, cutting, cutting, and cutting some more...getting rid of stuff that doesn't need to be in the story.  I cut a LOT from that first novel.  It was bloody.

So.  No agent.  No publishing contract.  NO WAY!  I was so sure in January of 2003 that the first wave of query letters I sent would land an agent and a contract!  I KNEW that within a year (at least) I'd be a published author!  I was MUCH better that the crappy-book-in-Alaska-author-guy!...Right?  Right?  Hmmm...All I heard was crickets.  Damn.

From 2003 to 2009, I wrote in fits & starts, finishing a second novel (THE MENGELE EFFECT), starting two others, & sending out queries for THE COMING when the spirit moved me.  The spirit didn't move me very often, though, and left me alone for almost two years during that timeframe.  I thought I had a couple of good stories on the ramp, and some good ideas for two more in the hanger, but I'd given up on the whole get-an-agent thaaang.

Then, through a friend at work (whose wife is a terrific writer--Kim Stokely), I discovered the Nebraska Writers Workshop & went to a few meetings.  Got a tad bit fired-up about writing.  I decided to enter the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest in 2011, and THE COMING made it all the way to the Quarterfinals round (top 250 of 5,000 entries).  Got a little bit MORE fired up about writing.  But, there was still that can't-get-an-agent thing standing in front of me, making an annoying raspberry noise.  Blech.

I then noticed a post from a Nebraska Writers Workshop member who'd self-published one of her novels through Smashwords (Lisa Kovanda, author of THE HUNT and RECKLESS ABANDON).  I looked at Smashwords, and decided to give it a try.  Very easy.  I've sold a few, too.  Kinda cool.

When I started writing, I thought self-publishing was the epitome of self-indulgence, self-importance, and self-aggrandizing.  Self, self, self...I see a pattern emerging, don't you?  Well...I hate to admit it, but it's true!  There's nothing special about self-publishing, because ANYONE can do it, regardless of talent.  Harsh?  Yep.  I am the pot, I am the kettle.  Koo-koo-ka-choo.

So why did I finally self-publish, you ask?  Simple.  I want to tell a story.  I want someone to read it, and hopefully enjoy it.  I can't do that waiting for an agent to find my submission in a slush pile...I can do that through self-publishing my novels as eBooks.  Will I ever get that agent & publishing contract?  Odds are against me...I won't quit trying, but I'm not going to sit still either!  I will write, I will edit, I will publish eBooks, and I will smile if someone lets me know they like what I've written.  Badda bing, badda boom.

See, I told you it was simple!

Monday, January 23, 2012

SUBMITTED!

Just submitted THE MENGELE EFFECT to the 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest!  Now, I wait until 23 February to see if it makes the cut from 5,000 entries down to 1,000 entries for the Second Round...

Sunday, January 22, 2012

T-1 and Counting Until the 2012 ABNAs!

The 2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest submission period begins tomorrow, 23 Jan.  The 300-word pitch is scrubbed, the 5K-word excerpt is scrubbed, and the manuscript is ready to go...I'm hoping THE MENGELE EFFECT will make it at least as far as THE COMING did last year!

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Website Updated

My author website now has downloadable excerpts for the two novels I have in the "creative hopper" - titled, SKINNER and JEREMY.  Take a look and let me know what you think!

Chuck Grossart

(If you're wondering what a "creative hopper" is, it's actually my weirdly-shaped head.  You were wondering.  Admit it.)

Monday, January 16, 2012

2012 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award Contest - Just Around the Corner!

It's about that time of year again...time when thousands of hopeful writers across the country dust off their unpublished manuscripts & prepare for the ABNAs!...at least between watching the NFL Playoffs, that is.  But, if you're a Bronco fan like me (or a Bengals-Texans-Steelers-Packers-Falcons-Saints-Lions fan), there's much more free time now, right?  Right.  Bummer.

Like the 2011 ABNAs, once the submission window opens (23 January this year), the contest will accept 5,000 entries in the General Fiction (my category) and Young Adult categories; each submission consists of a 300-word pitch, a 5,000-word excerpt, and the entire manuscript.  Based on the 300-word pitch, they'll make the initial cut from 5,000 to 1,000 for the Second Round.  From there, they'll cut from 1,000 to 250 for the Quarterfinals, from 250 to 50 for the Semi-Finals, and from 50 to 3 for the finals.  The lucky winner gets a publishing contract from Penguin Books...

Last year, my novel THE COMING made it to the Quarterfinals round (top 250), which I thought was WAY COOL!  This year, I'm entering THE MENGELE EFFECT.  I'm still editing the pitch, but here's what it looks like right now:

***


     What began as a quiet, peaceful evening in America’s Heartland quickly became—as the few remaining survivors would later recall—the last night humanity ruled the planet.  The sudden mutations began in a Kansas City salvage yard, erupting forth like a wind-blown wildfire across the sleeping metro.  Hours later, daybreak revealed a dead city, stripped of life by creatures that had once been animal, once been human, the end-products of perverse, decades-old genetic research performed in Auschwitz’s twisted labs, refined by Cold War enemies, and finally, on this night, perfected by nature.

     Carolyn Ridenour, a member of the government’s super-secret Vanguard bio-warfare research team, fights a daily battle to keep America safe from the world's tiniest, most fearsome weapons.  Ordered to Kansas City to investigate the unfolding horror, she barely escapes the creatures' nocturnal onslaught, saved at the last instant by Colonel Garrett Hoffmann, a man who'd helplessly witnessed the slaughter of hundreds of his troops—and innocent civilians—under the creatures' horrific advance.  President Andrew Smith, former Navy Admiral and battle-scarred hero, watches as city after city is literally eaten alive, the military’s conventional might useless against a swarming foe that inexplicably—and exponentially—replenishes its numbers every twenty-four hours, slowed only by the sun's killing light.  Frantic for answers, the President is pushed towards the unthinkable by members of his own government…trusted advisors who have long prayed for this day, each members of an ancient order sworn to destroy civilization in order to save their own souls.

     As the horrid mutations threaten to spill across US borders, Carolyn, Garrett Hoffmann and the Vanguard team race to find a way to stop the creatures before a desperate President unleashes the fury of America's nuclear arsenal on his own soil...and his own citizens.

***

We'll see how it goes!