Memorial Day

Here in the United States, today is a day to stop and think about the people who have died in the name of and wearing the uniform of the country. For some people, it's very easy to forget that. It's easy to think it's a day off, or a day for seeing family, or a day to get all that yardwork done. It can be all those things too.

But first and foremost it's a day to remember, and to honor, and to respect. I say this as someone who has a troubled relationship to this country's history and the things people have done in its name. My reading tends to include a lot of articles designed to remind us of all the horrible things the U.S. government and its armed forces have done.

Despite that, I find it superlatively important to remember that "the government" and "the army" are and always have been made up of individual human beings with thoughts, dreams, personal lives, struggles, strengths, weaknesses, failings, successes, and the right to be treated with dignity and respect until they, personally, lose that through their own actions. Soldiers, in particular, are people whose lives are forever changed by something larger than they are---ideally the collective will of their society, but sometimes the collective will of a small part of it instead. They are never the same when they come back as they were when they left. And when they die during or because of their service, the loss of all the potential their lives held is a tragedy as deep as any other.

So stop. Remember. Mourn.

It is more important than other things you have scheduled today.

News for the Week of 5.23.14: Sometimes I Write Things That Aren't Novels

Greetings, dearest readers!

Time for another post full of news and updates!

FIRST! The fire sale for Soulwoven went pretty darn well. The book sold more copies than it ever has in a day before, sending it up the Amazon bestseller rankings and, more importantly, giving a bunch of people a chance to check it out on the cheapies. Many thanks to everybody who boosted the signal—you were a huge part of making that happen. It’s still on sale for$2.99 on Amazon through 5/28, so if you missed the fire sale, you can still get in on the water sale (or something).

SECOND! I’m splashing around in the waters of short fiction and it feels SO GOOD. I’ve got two stories that are just about ready to head out on submission, and I’m being more active about pushing some others. One-sentence summaries, just to whet your appetites!

- A look at what the future of mixed martial arts might look like if we decide to replace the bodies in the cage with remote-controlled android replicas.

- A loving, tongue-in-cheek sendup of fantasy gaming tropes wherein a goblin officeworker with midlife ennui and a heart of gold discovers just how much you can find at the bottom of a Bottomless Bag.

- A postapocalyptic reimagining of the Icarus myth involving a walking Colossus and finger-wings of wax.

- A somewhat modernist take on fairy tales, art, and what one does with the gifts one receives in childhood.

So if you know anybody who publishes a magazine that pays pro or semi-pro rates and might be interested, hit me up.

THIRD! I’m writing essays. There are some Big Things that come up in Soulwoven: Exile, and I want to talk about them because they’re important. I won’t be publishing anything until the book’s out because spoilers, but I’m scouting out markets for them as well.

Thanks again to everybody who’s left stars or a review for Soulwoven, especially if it was on Amazon (which, sadly, seems to have more clout than anybody else these days). You guys are the wind in my sails.

Yours in excited ink,

Jeff

It's SALE DAY! Watch Me Get My Promotion On

Just a reminder, SOULWOVEN is on sale today for $.99 at Amazon.com, and for corresponding prices worldwide. Look at all the nice things people have had to say about it!

"Seymour lets these characters--and their private struggles--command the narrative...Seymour's artful perfectionism will have readers clamoring for the sequel." - Kirkus Reviews

"Soulwoven is a call back to the classic Epic Fantasy of Tolkien, or Weis and Hickman, with fantastic, believable characters that grow and change... A great read and a great time." - The Speculative Post

"This book is a comfort read. A world inspired by the medieval ages perhaps - castles, farm boys, magic and an ancient evil. For us having grown up on traditional high fantasy, it's sort of coming back to the centre of our worlds. But the verdict is, that Jeff can spin an alluring tale of magic and dragons. And spin it so well that we're willing to let the tropes lie by the roadside while we enjoy this old-fashioned tale thoroughly. And be hungry for more." - Smorgasbord Fantasia

"I am one of the original backers of this book, and I would say that was money well invested." - Goodreads review

"This is one intense fantasy world." - Goodreads review

"I found this to be a quick and enjoyable read, and wish I had the next one in hand so I could read on" - Amazon.com review

"I picked this up and found that I couldn't put the book down until I was finished." - Amazon.com review

"Very, very like a piece of steak." - Wattpad review

All that goodness can be yours for $.99. Grab it now!

Soulwoven's First Sale! $.99 - $2.99 on Amazon for the Next Week!

Okay, friends and readers---big and exciting news about Soulwoven's first sale!

In honor of the book's three-month anniversary (can't believe it's been so long already), it's going on sale on Amazon.com for a week. The sale will start Wednesday 5/21 and run through Wednesday 5/28, and it'll look like this:

Wednesday 5/21: $.99 for the e-book.

Thursday 5/22 - Wednesday 5/28: $2.99 for the e-book

Thursday 5/29 forward: Back to the regular $5.99 price

So if you're interested in reading the book but have been put off by the price, or if you've been needling your friends about it but they haven't done anything, now (or rather Wednesday)'s the time to strike!

Enjoy!

Marketing Soulwoven Part 3: Running the Kickstarter

This is part the third of a series of posts on how I've marketed Soulwoven. Part the first and part the second provide useful background.

Running a successful Kickstarter has a lot of facets. On the one hand, you're working to create the book, and it needs to be your first priority. On the other hand, you've also promised your backers a fly's-eye seat on the wall while you do it, and there's no question in my mind that fulfilling the second part of that equation is smart marketing.

So I consider a lot of the way I interacted with my backers during the Kickstarter a part of Soulwoven's marketing plan, even though I did most of those things to be good to my backers, and not because I wanted to do a good job of marketing (it's always about what you can do for them, remember?).

I started off with a long update a few days after the Kickstarter funded, explaining my thoughts on the whole process, what it meant to me, and why I was so grateful to my backers and how incredible what they did in funding the book was. You can read an adaptation of it here, but the full thing will only ever be available to the backers, as will the other Kickstarter updates I wrote. That was part of the deal I made with them; they got access to me as a creator that nobody else did.

And I did my best to be as accessible as possible.

I started before the Kickstarter even ended. I'd noticed as I backed other projects that I got much more excited about projects while they were still going on when the creators were excited and getting in touch with me about what was happening (excitement is one of the things you give backers in return for their money, or at least it should be). So I wrote about the editing that I was going to get, and I posted an example of the revision notes I was making as I worked through Soulwoven that month (I was getting in one last cover-to-cover revision before sending it off to my developmental editor). I wrote seven updates during the month the Kickstarter ran. Some of my backers were excitedly messaging me as I did it. Others upped their pledges. So that was good marketing, in addition to being A Thing That I Did Because It Was Right.

Once the Kickstarter finished, I kept up the updates---again, I knew from being a backer that having regular (not too often, but when milestones occurred) updates really helped make a person feel like they were a part of the process. I shared my budget, once I had all the final numbers hammered out. I let backers vote on the cover, then shared the final version when it came in. I shared the map when it came in. I tried to post at least once a month about where the book was in the publishing process, and I tried to anticipate questions and answer them (like "What's a galley copy?"). I made some videos and shared some photos as well.

Not everybody responded. Only about half of the backers voted on the cover choice. But that was totally fine; again, it wasn't about what they could do for me, it was about what I could do for them. If all they wanted was the finished product, or even just the momentary satisfaction of clicking the "Pledge" button, I was still absolutely thrilled to have them on board.

But overall, people really seemed to enjoy the process. When I talk to backers (the ones who interact with me, anyway), I get the feeling they really felt like they got their money's worth before the book even came out. Making that happen to me was very important as a creator, but it was also good marketing. Because happy readers are happy customers, and happy customers come back to you again.

And if there's an overall takeaway from this marketing post, it should be that. Make your readers happy. That's always been an imperative for most kinds of authors, but it's more important than ever in today's publishing environment. I've seen it over and over again in the indie world; the most successful authors aren't just the ones who can turn a phrase and crack a plot and build amazing worlds and characters. Their fans also love interacting with them.

I dealt with plenty of moments of panic as I was producing Soulwoven. I still have them now that I'm learning how to sell it. But during one of them, I happened upon a truth that has helped me keep perspective, and I'm going to share it with you because it's important.

You can't control whether\people will like your book. But you can control how you treat the people who do.

Industry Norms: Buying Other Authors' Books

This weekend I did a book signing at Robots & Rogues in Lafayette, IN, during a larger event called the Mosey Down Main Street. It was awesome. On top of selling a bunch of books, I met a bunch of great people, including several local authors. I got to hang out and talk fantasy and science fiction for hours on a Saturday night as well, which is one of my favorite things to do in the world.

When the bookstore and I settled up afterward, I had made some money. I gave about half of it back by buying the books of authors I'd met that night, or who were going to be coming by the store later in the summer and whose books I wanted to read beforehand.

This is an industry norm, and it's one I didn't learn about until last year, and it's one that caught me by surprise.

So I thought I'd write about it here, because I now know that there are other writers early in their careers who read this blog, and I feel guilty about not knowing about this norm at the first signing I did and failing to reciprocate when some really friendly authors bought my book there.

It makes sense on many levels, when you think about it. One, it's professional courtesy. But beyond that, it's the best way to make connections with your peers, and believe me, connections with your peers are exceptionally, superlatively important. During one of the signing's quieter moments, I overheard people talking about how "It's really all in who you know." I'm not sure whether they were talking about publishing or not (because a lot of industries work that way), but they could have been.

And the way you get to know people in this industry is by reading their books and reaching out to them. I've made many mistakes in my career (already!), and one of the biggest was in waiting to read the books of other indie authors until I was almost ready to publish Soulwoven. I should have been doing it for a year ahead of time, both so that I knew the market better and so that I could find the ones I liked and tell them how much I liked them. Because that's really important to do as an author. We all live in a world of deep, dark fears and years of trauma during which we learned to write primarily by being told everything that's wrong with how we write. Peer recognition is important---it's a human thing.

So read other authors, especially those you meet in person and who buy your books. Then if you like their book, reach out and tell them so.

I think my initial resistance to doing that was that it felt too much like a pyramid scheme. "What do you mean I have to read a dozen other authors before I publish my book? That sounds fishy..." And when you put it that way, it is fishy.

But you wouldn't launch a restaurant without trying out some of the other ones in the neighborhood, right? And you wouldn't launch a website without seeing who else was doing the same thing and how, right? It's the same here. Reading other authors, in addition to being professional courtesy, is market research. It's important. You should do it. You'll be glad you did.

News for the Week of 5.9.14 - Signin', Writin', and Discountin'

Hello, dear readers!

Time for a newsy update blog post. First off, things related to SOULWOVEN:

I finished a getting-closer-to-final draft of Soulwoven: Exile this week and sent it off to a very excited batch of first readers! They’ll be going over it for the next month or so and getting me comments back about what’s working and what isn’t. This is a hugely important step in the writing process for me, and it’s always extremely nerve-racking. But my readers are awesome and helpful and big fans, and I’m very glad to have hit this point in the writing process.

Second, SOULWOVEN will be going on sale later this month. I don’t have all the details yet, but the most likely scenario is that the e-book edition will drop to $.99 on May 21, the three-month anniversary of the launch. So if you’ve been interested in reading it but $5.99 felt too steep, get your clicking finger ready and circle the date.

Third, tomorrow I’ll be signing copies of SOULWOVEN at Robots & Rogues, my local indie SF/F specialty bookstore, in downtown Lafayette, Indiana, during an event called the Mosey Down Main Street. I’ve been told the Mosey is a blast, with music, food, and beer galore, and I couldn’t be more excited to have a good excuse to go join in and call it work. Come hang out, if you’re in the area.

Phew! That’s it for Soulwoven news for now. I’m going to be working on short fiction while my first readers crunch Exile for me, and I’m quite excited for that. I’ve got three projects to polish and a couple more ideas lined up. I also have a pending request from a very important person to write something happy, and I’m becoming more and more interested in doing so.

Cheers, and thanks for following along. If you’ve read Soulwoven, please take the time to review it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Goodreads.

Yours in rain and ink,

Jeff