You know, it's amazing how fast time slips by. I can't believe it's been 10 months since my last post on this page.
The Gemini Effect came out on Kindle First in March of 2015, and it's been a steady wild ride since then! So what's happened since then? Well, let's see...
-
The Gemini Effect has sold ~211,000 copies since March 1, 2015. Still blows my mind.
-
The Phoenix Descent, my second novel through Amazon's 47North imprint, will be released in just a few months (March of 2016).
- After years of unsuccessfully trying to land an agent, and sending out so many query letters that I lost count, an agent reached out to
me. After a fifteen minute phone conversation, that was that. I'm represented by
Mark Gottlieb of Trident Media Group.
- I decided to remove all my stand-alone flash fiction & short stories from circulation and keep them as part of
Scattered Bones. I was able to keep them free on Smashwords, B&N and Apple, but it was an effort to keep them free on Amazon in the US (and almost impossible in the UK). So, I figured $0.99 for a 34,000-word collection was the better way to go. Re-did the cover, too, which I like much more than the original.
- Wrote my first 19,000-word novella,
Splits. That was fun...I might just have to write a few more of those. ;)
- Continued work on new other novels; a new work, which I'm calling
Brody4, and a much-needed re-vamp of an existing manuscript, which I've re-titled
The Chosen.
The Highlights
2015 was an amazing year, and the biggest highlight was watching
The Gemini Effect launch on Kindle First. It was a magical feeling waking up on March 1 and seeing the reviews start to come in, and became even more magical when it reached #1 in the US Kindle store a few days later.
Before the book came out, Jason Kirk, my editor at47North, signed me for another novel,
The Phoenix Descent. Writing what turned out to be a 112,000-word initial manuscript draft in 4-5 months was one of the toughest things I've ever done (to include a 14,600-word weekend as I pushed to the finish), but I enjoyed every minute. Then, working with Jason again, we trimmed it down below 90K words and--we think--produced a better book than
The Gemini Effect. I guess we'll find out in a few more months if we're right! Speaking of Jason, working with him on two novels so far has been a simply amazing experience. I truly hope there's more chances to collaborate on more books in the future.
The reviews for
The Gemini Effect have been both a highlight AND a lowlight of the past year...I'll get to that next.
The Reviews
Being first offered through Kindle First, The Gemini Effect was offered to a H-U-G-E pool of readers, some who would like it, and others who wouldn't. Seeing those first few 5-star reviews come in on March 1 was great...and then the bad ones started showing up. And showing up. And showing up. Ten months later, I can honestly say the bad reviews don't bother me as badly as they did those first couple of months, but holy cow, I wanted to crawl in a hole, stop writing, and never come out again. My experience with reviews as a self-published author was different--my reader pool was much, much smaller, and the reviews were almost all good. But now, I had a book out there in the BIG WORLD, being read by thousands of people, and the digital age of "anonymous" communication being what it is, some people had no problem whatsoever telling other readers what they thought. I had to give some of those 1-star reviewers an A for effort, because they even made
me laugh! Now, some of those poor reviews opened my eyes to things I could do differently in my writing, and that's awesome. To those reviewers, I say thank you. But, there are others, those who feel the need to pen personal attacks, whom I view in an entirely different light. I think that aspect of swimming in the "big reviewer pool" was the most shocking part. Again, a person behind a keyboard feels anonymous enough to say whatever they want to, and some do. It's the world we live in now, and I get it. In the last ten months, I've been called every name in the book--I'm a gun nut. A bomb lover. A Crichton/Clancy wannabe. A woman hater. On, and on, and on. Very few, however, had the guts to attach their names to the reviews, always relying on "Amazon Customer" or "Anonymous" (in B&N's case). I know I'm not alone when I say writers crave constructive criticism--it helps us improve our craft. But those who spew vitriol without the common decency to attach their name to their words, well...
I did a blog interview at the end of March 2015 where one of the questions was what advice would I give to first-time writers. Regarding reviews specifically, this is what I said:
"...learn to have a thick skin. Be willing
to accept constructive criticism, and shrug-off the vitriolic criticism
that every writer eventually receives. Is this an easy thing to do? No.
Not. At. All. Like everything else, it’s a learning process. To
paraphrase Isaac Asimov, there are two types of writers: Those who bleed
copiously and visibly at any bad review, and those who bleed copiously
and secretly at any bad review. The first time you receive a bad review,
it may feel as if you’ve just shown your newborn baby to a
stranger—that baby is the most beautiful, precious thing you’ve ever
seen—and the stranger says, 'Wow, that is one ugly baby! How dare you
bring such a horrid creature into my world!' Then, after the stranger
vomits a few times (on your shoes), a crowd gathers, they chase you back
to your castle with torches and pitchforks, and everything goes up in
flames, especially your confidence as a writer.
One thing to
remember is that a review is a message from a reader to other
readers—it’s not directed at you. Some authors I know never look at
reviews, good or bad. But, if you do, don’t take it personally. Even
though someone just called your precious baby ugly, don’t ever let it
kill your desire to write, and don’t ever respond. Let me say that
again: No matter how badly you want to, don’t respond. Once your story
is out in the big bad reviewer world, it has to stand on its own two
feet. It’ll get praised, and it’ll get bullied, and you have to stand
back and let it happen.
If you do get a nasty one, and it’s bugging you, keep this quote from Teddy Roosevelt nearby (it helps):
'It
is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong
man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face
is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs,
who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without
error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who
knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a
worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high
achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while
daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and
timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Now, lets talk about the GOOD reviews! I can't tell you how any people have contacted me though my Facebook page and website to tell me how much they loved
The Gemini Effect. It's messages like this one that really make my day:
"Hello. Your book
The Gemini Effect is incredible! I started it wheels
up upon takeoff in Dallas and when I landed in Miami was about halfway
through. I then finished it in a second sitting in the hotel room that
very night. Now I've read almost every possible apocalypse/mutant book
out there from
Tooth and Nail to
The Passage and this is by far an
incredible read. Thanks for writing it and I look forward to reading
your other past and future works."
It's people like this for whom I write, and will continue to do so.
As 2015 passes into history, I will personally look back on it fondly as a year where my dream of becoming a published author finally came true. And I'm not done yet.
I wish everyone all the best for 2016, and keep on turning those pages!
