My Blood Approves of the Paranormal Activity that was witnessed by Amanda Palmer & Grand Theft Orchestra

The Internet is so full of potential,but I never thought of it as a two-way thing as much as I do right now.  I've always known the power the Internet has for the individual as a receiver of information, but it wasn't until this week that I really began to realize how much reach the individual can have as a giver.

All you readers out there have probably heard of Amanda Hocking, the indie writer from Minnesota who sold a million copies of her work when she self-published on Amazon after years of rejection from publishing companies.

You have probably seen at least one of the films in the Paranormal Activity trilogy, or at least heard of them- they're those "found footage"movies by previously unknown director/writer Oren Peli that beat out records previously held by The Blair Witch Project.

In the last couple of weeks, you may have heard of Amanda Fucking Palmer & Grand Theft Orchestra, who shattered all expectations and goals when their album and tour became the first Kickstarter funded project to receive more than $1million.

So what does Amanda Hocking's books, Oren Peli's movies, and Amanda Palmer's music all have in common?  The Internet!  All of them used the web to reach out, find fans, and get their work noticed.  In past posts on Hocking's blog, you can read about her putting in hours and hours of marketing when she released her books.  Peli and his team did a ton of internet marketing in order to get people to demand Paranormal Activity be shown in theaters near them.  Palmer and her band spent loads of time Tweeting, blogging, and spreading the word about their album and tour.

"I must tell everyone about my romance novel, Secretary Spread!"

Artists of all types- be they writers, film makers, or musicians- have this amazing resource at the tips of their fingers (quite literally), and many are finally starting to harness its power.  We can no reach our precise audience, thousands of miles around the globe, at any time of the day or night.  You can find a web forum on any topic, from something as broad as "Pet Lovers" to something as specific as "People Who Want To Visit Planet Vulcan for the Sole Purpose of Taking An Elective Class On Historical Technologies of Wild Frog-Bears and How They Were Used To Win The Amphibious Civil War of 2361" and you'll find hundreds of people in them.

But there's another thing all three of them have in common- quality.  They put a lot of work and dedication in to creating something they believed in; something that other people would want to read/see/hear.

Do you want to reach an endless amount of people and share your work?  There's never been a better time to do so.  Before the Internet, artists (writers, film makers, musicians, et al) were limited to who they could connect to via snail mail, having to wait months to hear back, if ever, and more often than not it would be a rejection that came back.  The outlook was pretty bleak- send in your work, hope it didn't get lost under the mountains of others who were hoping to be discovered just like you, and hope that the person who could do something about it (producer, publisher, etc) would be willing to take a chance on it.  More often than not, it would pass through an intern first, and you'd have to hope they liked it enough to pass along to their boss.  Once it got that far, you'd have to hope that the company would be willing to front the money for printing, publishing, production, and marketing.  If your project was lucky enough to actually get made, you then had to hope that the right people would walk in to the right stores and go to the right section, see your work, and be intrigued enough to pick it up and buy it.  A long shot, for sure.  (Did you know that the majority of traditionally published authors make $300 a year?  A YEAR!)

With the Internet, it's MUCH easier to get noticed.  That is, if you work for it.  You need a quality product, something you can be proud of, to put out there.  The cost of getting it out there yourself is virtually eliminated because of the Internet.  For example, publishing on Amazon does not cost the author a cent, which makes it possible for authors who would never have been discovered to become a best-seller.  The downside to this is that it is completely YOUR responsibility to get yourself and your work known because you don't have a marketing team doing it for you.  None of the three previously mentioned artists just sat back and *hoped* people would happen to Google the right terms to find their work- they went out and let people know about it!  So go, get out there, make something incredible, and let people know about it.  And please tell me about it, too- I love indie stuff!
 


P.S.- If you're looking for some great indie music, check out Hey Geronimo.  They have a new song out called "Carbon Affair," and it's free to download.  They have a great sound!

Don't Be A Lazy Writer

Last night I could barely sleep, and for three reasons:

1. It was far too hot.

2. I had zombies on my brain (pun totally intended) and every little noise was making me jump.

3. Ideas for my next novel were flooding in and couldn't be stopped! (Not that I'd want them to be stopped, of course.)

"I just want a hug.  That's all."

When ideas rush to me, I have to write them down before they escape into thin air.  I can't tell you how many times I used to say "I'll remember this in the morning" and then wake up the next morning and not be able to recall what it was.  Usually, I'd remember that I had an earth-shattering idea that would alternate reality as we know it, but couldn't remember for the life of me what that idea was.  I could've ended hunger, demolished the obesity epidemic, cured cancer, wiped away the national debt, and so much more if only I had written down those lost ideas!  Seriously!  (Okay, maybe I exaggerate here, but I've lost a lot of story ideas because of not writing them down.)

I'm totally in love with this idea.  So much so that I already have ten (10!) pages of notes on it, including character backgrounds and an underlying plot.  The best part is, after searching all around, I can't find any book out there yet even remotely similar to this idea!  (I've been waiting for an idea to come to me that is completely new and fresh and has nothing similar to it out there.)  It combines two (maybe three) of the most popular genres but does not seem to have been done yet, which makes me very happy.  I don't think the idea is too "out there" to be completely rejected by the reading community, especially people who enjoy these two major genres.

Seriously, I can't wait to start writing this story.  It's becoming so clear to me that I have to actually try to take the notes and then mute it so I can focus on my current project.

But what excites me so much about this idea isn't the thought of when it'll be done, published, and read by others (well, that thought does excite me, too), it's the thought of being able to explore this idea and see where it goes, to be able to dive into this world and become the characters.

The thing I've loved so much about writing my zombie novel is the fact that I'm there experiencing it all as it happens.  Each character is a part of me, and when I write I become them (I call it "method writing," but I'm not sure if there's actually a term for it or not), one at a time.  I know everything there is to know about every single one of them, even things they don't know about themselves.

So here's a big tip for all of you writers out there: don't be lazy!  Write an idea down when it comes to you!  You'll be thankful you did.  There has been dozens of times when I look back over notes to find part of an idea that I completely forgot about and then incorporate it right in to my story, and it makes the story so much stronger.  My whole zombie novel is based on a series of dreams, and most of the notes I have were written at 2am, 3am, or 4am after having seen something in a dream (so keep a notepad next to your bed, or do what I do: use a "Notes" app on your phone or text it to yourself).

Keep writing, and keep taking notes!

Knowing Your Place

Everyone always says that if you want to get well-known you need to have an angle, a niche, and a brand.  In the acting word, they talk a lot about "type" and finding roles based on that particular character or personality.

Writing is the same, it seems.  People find one genre or a set of similar genres that they fall into and can write about and build a following around that.

Some say once you find your place and build a foundation on it, then you can branch out to different subjects and new types to make yourself versatile.

I've never been sure on whether or not I wanted to go that route.  It seems like a lot of people who create a place for themselves have a difficult time breaking out of it.  For example, Adam Sandler is known for his over-the-top-often-annoyingly-loud characters and sometimes crude and off the wall humor.  When he did Punch Drunk Love, it flopped.  People hated it.  They weren't used to seeing Adam Sandler in a drama, and because of the expectations they had of him being funny, they had a hard time seeing in a serious role.  Robin Williams is similar- people have grown to love him for his comedy, so when he does a serious role people don't like it as much, even though he has a tremendous talent for drama.  But if he hadn't become known for his comedies, he probably wouldn't have had the opportunity to do the dramas.

Could you imagine if Stephen King suddenly decided to write romance books similar to the works of Nicholas Sparks?  I don't think his readers would know what to do.

If you're looking for fame, I think you need to almost always find a "type" and use that to create a fandom for yourself.  Frankly, some people are just looking to get famous in any way they possibly can- they don't care about what it is they're doing, they just want the following.  That's fine; to each his own, but that's not for me- I don't want to be famous just to be famous: I want to have something I'm good great at, something I can pass down to future generations and inspire them to create something even better.

Realizing that all my best ideas are in a genre I would have never consciously picked for myself made me question where I think I'm going with this.  Do I want to be a horror/thriller writer?  How hard will it be for me to break out of it in the future?  I'm not sure, really.  I don't want to always write horror- I've got adventure, fantasy, romance, and sci-fi ideas that I would love to develop into fruition.

It's also had me asking myself what I want in the long run- do I want fame?  The honest answer is that I have no clue whether or not I want to be famous.  The upside to fame would be having an influence and being able to bring awareness of important issues to fans, but the downside would be losing some privacy, having the pressure to live up to what's expected of you on a much grander scale than most, and being open to criticism (often not constructive) from so many more people.  I'm just not sure I'd want that, really.

What I would like, ultimately, is to be able to write stories that entertain and inspire people.  I want to make people think about themselves and the world around them, ask themselves about who they are and what they would do in certain situations, and create places for people to escape to when they need a break from reality.  And I'd love to make a living doing it, so I could do it all the time.

I admire Johnny Depp- he is entirely devoted to his craft and his family, but never wanted fame.  Often he seems to detest his celebrity.  It wasn't something he ever wanted, and because of his devotion to acting, it just happened.  Some people are like that, and I've met a few of them.  Those are the people who are so good at what they do that you know they're going to be famous whether they plan to or not.

So what's my type?  Where's my niche?  Right now, it seems to be horror/thriller.  After that, who knows.  My goal is to create great characters with depth, interesting conflicts, and the best story I can.  I don't care if I get famous or rich or neither because of it; I just want to be the best me I can.




P.S.- My Amazon Author Page has been updated.

Off To A Good Start, Now Just Have to Keep It Up

On the Anderson Cooper show today, Amanda Hocking was a guest.  I had never watched the show before, but I decided to tune in after I heard she was going to be on it.  She talked a lot about self-publishing, rejection, and determination to accomplish ones goals.  Her goal was to be published by the time she was 26 (the age when Stephen King was first published), and when traditional publishers rejected her more than 1,000 times (she claims), she took matters into her own hands and self-published through Amazon, just like I'm doing.

She mentioned about when her books were first up that she was selling one or two copies a day, which she says, in retrospect, is pretty good for a first-time author.  This gives me a lot of hope, because I've been selling an average of fifteen copies a day.  I'm worried it might be a fluke, that it'll slow down or stop altogether soon, but I'm enjoying it now and determined to keep it going and increasing.  I also know that there are a lot more Amazon Kindle owners now than there was a year and a half ago when Hocking first published her work, which is to my advantage.  I remember hearing somewhere that there were more than a million people who received Kindles for Christmas last month.

Hopefully, this isn't a fluke- Over the last three days, I kept hearing the phrase "the cream will rise to the top."  I hope I'm cream; I'm certainly pale enough to be.  ;)