Just had an interesting exchange with a graphic designer who confused "just being honest" with being rude. On the one hand, she made a good point, about aspiring writers needing to either do the research and learn how to do a good cover, or, better yet, hire a pro. On the other, she presented it in such a way that she came off as rude. Because of that, she spent half of the time in the thread having to defend how "brutally honest" she was being to other people. When she learned she had just lost a potential customer, this was her response: "Oh and, just so you know, Designers often reserve the right to choose who they want to work with. So don't flatter yourself thinking that I was dying for your "business" haha." The truth is, she probably lost even more potential customers with that remark. How we present ourselves is as important as our message. Even writers, perhaps especially writers, need to remember that the things we say on social media are things heard by potential readers of our work. If we ever want to be published or make a career of writing, we need to remember that how we present our message, and thus ourselves, is as important as the message itself. If you present the most important message of your life badly, no one is going to hear what you're saying because they're going to concentrate more on how you said it. If you're trying to present yourself as a pro, you're not going to do that by being rude and condescending.
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If you've been on Facebook in the last few hours, you've already seen this, but I also wanted to post it here. I get thousands of its here a month, so I know a lot of traffic comes here. And here, I get to go into a little more detail.
I got to watch Gerry Kissell do the preliminary work on this on Saturday, and I was amazed at how quickly this came together and how much detail he packed into it. Everything on this cover reflects an element from the book, from the place the story starts to important details about the building itself. And I love how Gerry managed to add in the visual link back to how book one ended. I could spend hours picking out amazing little things about this. This one is much better than the one I did for ZS: Exodus, and in time, you can bet I'm going to ask Gerry to redo the cover to it, too. But for today, I'm moving forward. If you want to see more of his work, go to his awesome website. I plan to get ZS: Inferno out hopefully by end of week, and when I do, I'm going to be making some noise. I hope you'll help me. Well, folks, I just wrapped up the second book in the Zompoc Survivor series. It’s in the hands of the editor, and I’ll also be sending it to my tech folks for double checking as well. Almost a month and a half after the deadline I’d set for myself, but I’m still pretty pleased. Five months to write a novel is still pretty impressive (if you’re me). For the next few days, no more staying up until 4 AM unless I want to. Anyway, some fun facts about ZS: 2. It’s longer than ZS: Exodus… about 20% longer. ZS:E was just under 70K words long, ZS:2 weighed in at 86K. That should add a little more than 30 pages to the print copies. But, good news: I’m not raising the price. I’ve been calling this one ZS: Odyssey, but the more I worked on it, the more it didn’t seem to fit this book. Maybe the next one. I’m giving some thought to it, but I think I have a theme for the Zompoc Survivor series, where the individual book title is derived from one of the classics. Since I started with Exodus, and I plan on using Odyssey, I figure why not stick with what worked? We’ll learn a little more about the Asura virus in this book, and find connections from some of the things in the first book, as well as we’ll learn a little more about Dave and his eventual role in things. Plus, of course, new zombies, new gear and new survival tricks. And, as always lots of action and zombie killing. But, of course, the best part? The wait is almost over for the second book in the Zompoc Survivor series.
Let me start by saying I love writing. No matter how you approach it, that's cool. Some folks are purists, and write for the love of storytelling alone. They don't care about making money for their work, and I really respect that. They're like Jedi, protecting truth and justice throughout the writing galaxy.
I'm not like that. I'm a Sith Lord to the purist Jedi that way. I write to get paid. My characters don't talk to me, they don't take over the story. My writing takes place whether I'm in the mood or not. I totally force art. I don't think my writing skill wanes with my mood or the absence of my Muse. And I've proven to myself that I can write almost anywhere, under almost any conditions. If I can write in the back of a moving car in the dark, I can write just about anywhere. And I write even when it's work. Because make no mistake, writing IS work. Writing an entire novel is a LOT of work. And sometimes I enjoy it more than other times. But even when I'm not having a total blast writing, I'm having a better day than I am working for someone else. Getting published, especially self-published, is even more work. If you want to write for a living, you have to be ready to do the work. I'm still working on making it to the point where writing IS my living, but I'm a lot closer to that point than I've ever been in my life. But don't think you can write only when the mood strikes you, that you can rely on a capricious Muse and still make a living as a writer. Content is king, and most readers don't care about your process. They don't care if your characters have stopped talking to you, or if your Muse has run off with your motivation to the Caribbean for a well deserved retreat. Readers want what you promised when you put out your first book: the next one. They don't buy your book simply because of your process. They buy it for a good story. So, when you want to get published, be ready to work for it. Want to make a living at it? Fire up that red lightsaber and chuck the romantic notions out the window. Welcome to the dark side. I should be finishing my next book tonight. But I’m not. Right now, I’m following the Amazon vs Hachette dispute, mostly out of morbid curiosity. Now, for those of you who are avid readers, or who have been following this whole thing, you know that we all have a dog in this fight. As readers, we’re faced with the prospect that many of our favorite authors’ books will become more and more expensive to buy on Kindle if Hachette wins. Because evidently, Hachettte thinks they need to sell fewer e-books than they do hard copies. As authors…well, it depends on who you are. If you're a traditionally published author, my personal opinion is that the prospect of Hachette winning this battle should scare the living shit out of you. Here’s what I foresee you being able to look forward to if they do: More “life of copyright” clauses. More non-compete clauses. Higher prices for your e-books, without a corresponding increase in return for you. Fewer e-book sales for you. More indie authors outselling you. More indie authors. As an indie author, I still have a dog in this fight, but it’s more of a sentimental thing than an economic one. See, I hate it when authors suffer. And in the end, whether Hachette wins or loses, their authors are going to suffer. I can guarantee that. I’ve been around for a few years, and the only thing I’ve ever seen roll downhill without fail is shit. My personal and political views aside, I don’t see Hachette authors coming out ahead in this whole thing no matter how it plays out. Hachette’s executives…bonuses all around, motherfuckers, because “integrity” and shit. Authors? Sorry, we had to cut our marketing budget, and so on. In my messed up worldview, this is how it’s going to play out either way. And for Hachette’s authors, this has got to look like some kind of Greek tragedy at some point. These folks HAVE to root for Hachette as the hand that feeds them. I mean, yeah, they could decide not to play by the corporate script, but being a voice of reason in a tragedy usually earns you an early and messy death offstage. So for many, all they can do is shut up, hang on and hope they survive the inevitable plunge over the cliff. Some, however, are up there with the mad king whipping the horses. Not sure what they’re thinking is, and I usually end up being a wiseass when I try to figure it out. No matter which side prevails here, there is one thing I’m certain of in this whole thing: I win. If Amazon wins, I think we all win. I could be wrong. I have about a 50/50 success rate with that predicting the future thing. This is why I don’t do psychic readings for a living. But the way I see it, Amazon gets Hachette to price books reasonably, and readers can afford their favorite writers’ books. Hachette’s authors sell a TON of books. Hachette makes money, Amazon makes money, and I keep making money like I always have. (Zombies sell. Always. Thanks Mr. Romero.) Unicorns poop rainbows and fart glitter and the world is a happy place, unless you’re a Hachette author, in which case, you still get a little screwed. Yay peace on Earth. If Hachette wins, the other Big Four come into their negotiations with Amazon stronger than before and demand similar deals. Big publishing house e-books cost a lot and sell enough to earn best seller status just long enough to slap it on the cover of a book below an author’s name. Indie authors’ books cost less and our readers are the ones who get good books at a decent price, which means we sell a ton of books and more of us make a living as writers than Big Five authors do. We make money, Amazon makes money. I poop rainbows and fart glitter, which means my doctor makes money. Hachette’s authors still get a little screwed. Maybe more than a little. In the short run, indie authors win either way, and I’m fine with that. Granted, very little of the coverage of this whole clash of literary titans has acknowledged that we even exist, much less have an opinion on the outcome. In the long run, that is going to hurt the publishing houses. The big publishers have never realized who their true customers really are. To publishers, their customers are bookstores and booksellers. Readers are an unfortunate distraction that someone else has to deal with, which means publishing houses have no almost interest in what readers want outside of how that drives bookstores. They almost never talk to the people who are actually buying their product at the end stage. They have long forgotten where the loyalties of readers truly lie. Word of warning, publishers: Readers have zero loyalty to you. ZERO. “I can’t wait until Simon & Schuster puts a new book out!” said no reader ever. Guess who readers send fan mail to? Hachette executives? Hachette stockholders? No. Authors. Readers follow authors. Readers love authors. Readers wait for authors to put books out. Readers have conversations with the people who write the books they love. Readers leave reviews for those folks. We talk to our readers; in our blogs, on our websites and in emails, face to face conversations and through the stories we write, we develop those relationships with our readers. Publishing executives don’t. If I meet Jim Butcher, I’m likely to go all fan boy. If I meet the CEO of Roc Books, I’m likely to not know it or really give a damn. It is the relationships that authors have created with readers that keeps a publisher alive. And in this day and age, an author can sever their relationship with a publisher without ending their relationship with their readers. With Amazon, they can do it and still make a living without needing a publisher. That should scare some folk.
First off, an entire month went by without a blog entry. Now we see why I am a novelist, not a blogger. Second, my latest acquisition arrived today, a Kelly Kettle. I got the Scout kit, which includes the 44 oz. kettle, the large cook set (by comparison to the others, because it's pretty compact) and the pot support for the chimney. I also ordered five of the Sureflame fuel disks. Let me tell you, this thing is amazing. I didn't want to waste one of the Sureflames, so I just walked out into the yard and found a handful of twigs and some dry leaves for kindling and fuel, grabbed some lint from the lint trap on the dryer and took it out to the bar-b-que grill to try it out. To make sure I got it to light on my first attempt (okay, it took me TWO tries), I took my knife to a few of the twigs and made them into feather sticks. To be honest, my brain was fighting the idea the whole way. I felt like I was trying to make a campfire in a cereal bowl. I'm originally from Texas, and in true Texas fashion, I tend toward BIG. What most people call a bonfire, I call a cozy little blaze. If you can't see the damn thing from low orbit, you're just not trying hard enough. So breaking twigs down into four inch lengths seemed completely unnatural to me. There was no WAY a handful of dry twigs was going to get hot enough to boil water. Once the blaze was started though, and I put the kettle over it....it was like a rocket (hence the name, I suppose). I had boiling water in a matter of minutes. Now, the Kelly Kettle I got would fill the pot that I got for it pretty handily, which is great for single servings. That is what it's designed for, and it does that job well. If you have more than one person to cook for, be ready to take the time to cook for each person individually. Which, with the Kelly Kettle, won't take long at all for two to three people. More people than that, and you're going to want to use a bigger fire. Clean up...not as bad as I thought it would be. Granted, as you can see from the pictures, it's not sparkling clean, but it's a tiny little fireplace. How clean do you expect it to be? I found the hard way that using lint for tinder left an ash residue on the bottom that turned into a big lump once I poured water into the fire bowl, but it still came out easily enough. On the plus side, it still smells a little of woodsmoke, without being unpleasant to my nose. We'll see what my girlfriend thinks when she gets in. Everything packed back up in a very compact package, which is pretty cool, considering how big the box it came in was, and that everything was separate. When packing it up, the kettle actually starts off upside down, like the image on the left, and the bag is fitted over it before you flip it over and get what you see on the right.
With this, you can cook for yourself and generate a lot of heat with a minimal amount of fuel, and the best part is, you don't have to carry a bunch of fuel around with you. Twigs, pine cones, anything that burns well works, and it doesn't take much. Plus, with the kettle top in place to act as a chimney, you can limit the amount of light it gives off. Perfect for those nights out in the open when you don't want to attract zombies with a big fire. So, for my next project(s), I'm going to make a Buddy Burner and a hobo stove. At least one of those makes an appearance in Zompoc Survivor: Odyssey. Until then, stay sharp and always have a plan B. As promised, a brief snippet from the first chapter of ZS: Odyssey. “We’ve got to get off this roof,” I said. The pilot was helping his wounded comrade pull her assault vest off, but he spared a second to give me glare as she sat on the edge of the rear deck. “We’re about as safe here as we would be anywhere else, Mr. Stewart,” he said as he opened the first aid kit. “We’re on high ground, and this is a pretty defensible position. We’ve only got a couple more hours of sunlight left, so the best thing we can do is stay here until morning, when we can get our bearings and make a plan.” He turned away and started inspecting the wounded Marine’s arm. Now that we weren’t being shot at or trying not to fall to our deaths, I was able to take in details. The female Marine had the two chevrons over crossed rifles of a corporal. Her name tag read Hernandez. The pilot had a subdued black bar on his rank tab, and Kaplan on the tape over his pocket. “Lieutenant, most days, I’d agree with you,” I said as I walked over to them. Hernandez winced as he poured the contents of a packet of Kwik-Clot over her wound. “But not today.” “Listen, Mr. Stewart,” he said as he set the gauze wrap in Hernandez’ hand. He stood up and gave himself a few inches of vertical advantage on me before he went on. “We’re trained to handle situations like this. I know you’re scared right now, and I know this rooftop feels pretty exposed. From a civilian’s point of view, I can imagine how scary the situation must seem.” Behind him, Hernandez let out a little grunt that sounded like a laugh that had barely slipped under the wire. I took a deep breath and tried to reign my temper in, but somehow, that seemed to make things worse. “You’re…trained for things like this,” I said slowly. “When did the Marine Corps add zombie apocalypse to its leadership course curriculum? Because if they did, you sure as hell didn't sign up for it! Look over there, lieutenant. Do you notice anything unusual about the dozens of reanimated dead people?” His head turned, then he turned back to me a couple of seconds later. “Well, they’re dead again. Look, Mr. Stewart, you did a fantastic job keeping them away from the chopper, but that doesn't change basic-” “Scrubs, Kaplan! Scrubs and hospital gowns!” I cut him off. “We landed on top of a goddamn hospital.” His face went slack, and I watched the blood drain from his cheeks. “Oh shit,” he breathed. “We’ve got to get the hell off this roof.”
One of the things I'm discovering about ending the first book of a series on a cliffhanger is that for some strange reason, people really want to know when the next book is coming out. It's like I ended the story with my hero about to crash into a zombie infested wasteland or something. Which is, of course, great. Not that I take great pleasure in torturing my readers, (The same can't be said of my characters) but that they like the story so much. So, this is me, burning the midnight oil and writing until 5:30 AM in the hope that I'll have ZS: Odyssey ready to go by July 1. Granted, I'm being wildly optimistic, but I have a terrific proofreader and this isn't my first novel so I'm pretty confident I can pull that off. Okay, so how far along am I? Tonight saw me break the 40K mark on wordcount. To give you a better idea of what that means in terms of "How close to done are you, damn it!!?", ZS: Exodus was just shy of 70K words long. It was also 15 chapters long, and tonight, I just ended chapter 6. So, tonight puts me about halfway done. ZS: Odyssey is going to be a little longer than Exodus, I know that. We're going to see a couple of different kinds of infected, and you'll learn a little more about the Asura virus. We'll also learn a little more about Dave, or course, and more importantly, Dave will learn some things about himself. I'll try to post a snippet later this week.
In Zompoc Survivor: Exodus, Dave Stewart uses several guns. Four different pistols, three rifles and a mini-gun as near as I can remember. I’ve been interested to one degree or another with survival since the late 1980s, when I lived and worked at McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita, Kansas and my thoughts on guns as survival tools after SHTF have been very much the same the whole time. When it comes to firearms, the well-stocked survival armory doesn't need a large supply of guns, it needs a good selection of them. In a perfect world, my gun cabinet would have four, maybe five guns: two pistols (one revolver and one semiautomatic), one rifle for hunting and self-defense, one shotgun for the same purposes, and a small caliber rifle for small game hunting. It’s the last one that I would hope saw the most use, so it’s that one I’m going to concentrate on to start with in this entry. It should come as no surprise that I chose the Ruger 10/22 as my utility rifle. Since it was introduced in 1964, over five million have been made. It’s light, handles like a dream out of the box and has negligible recoil, plus, when you can find it, .22 ammo is dirt cheap. The 10/22 is also infinitely customizable, and it’s a good gun to pick up without breaking your budget, which is the primary reason Dave has one, since I wanted his preparations to be accessible to almost anyone. To that end, Dave’s Ruger only has a couple of after-market modifications, specifically, a Tactical Solutions Magazine Release and a Simmons .22 Mag Series scope. Both of these items cost under $50, and the rifle itself can run between $200-300 depending on which one you get and who you buy it from. Extra magazines from Ruger can be ordered for about $20 each. All told, you could put together a pretty decent kit over time for under $500, with the biggest single expense being the rifle itself. Dave bought the rifle first with his tax returns, then got the extra magazines before moving on to the scope and finally the quick release for the magazines. The 10/22 is a great utility rifle. At close range, a 40 grain .22 round will drop most small game. It will also hurt most people pretty effectively if you have no other weapon for self-defense, through it’s not a man stopper. However, even from a pistol, .22 LR will penetrate through at least two standard walls (four layers of sheetrock), so you still want to be sure of your target and what is behind it if you’re shooting inside. So in a pinch, if you can only get out with one gun, the Ruger 10/22 is not a bad choice. Within 100 yards, it can penetrate pretty effectively though shot placement would be critical in a self-defense situation, and it can drop most small to medium game within about 200 yards if you need it to. It’s also light and durable, so if you have a long way to go, it won’t weigh you down so badly, especially since .22 ammo is so damn light and cheap. Also, since it's a semiauto rifle, you can put rounds downrange faster than a bolt action, and with its almost non-existent recoil, you can acquire targets pretty easily. Good for handling a group of zombies at a distance. But What about Zombies?
.22 vs zombie skull. Which one would win? That question came up from more than one beta reader. Again, shot placement is critical. In talking to Lee Close, I was quickly disabused of the notion that “headshot” equals the forehead. In fact, aiming above the eyebrows quickly became something I wanted to actively avoid. The forehead is pretty much the thickest part of the human skull, so if you’re looking for a place to bounce small caliber rounds off of, that’s the spot to aim for. But, the brain is a pretty big organ and if you really want to give a zombie a fatal dose of small caliber lead poisoning, aim for the face. Here’s why. If you put your sights on a zombie’s nose, even if you miss by even a couple of inches, you’re going to hit them either in the eye, the cheek or the mouth. While there are some pretty thick pieces of bone there, a big chunk of that area is empty space, especially the nasal cavities and eye sockets. And if you do happen to hit the nose…nothing but cartilage there. This is how Dave drops a big group of zombies with a Ruger 10/22. If a zombie does give you a profile shot, aim for the ear. It’s center mass and it’s hard to go wrong with if you’re off by an inch or three. If by some strange happenstance, the walking dead folks are facing away from you and all you have is a small caliber target and varmint rifle…don’t fix that happy circumstance by letting them know you’re there and not dead. That being said, ammo choice is also pretty important. 40 grain rounds seem to be the best combo of weight and velocity. lighter rounds are too likely to either not hit hard enough or get blown off target by wind. Too heavy, and you lose range and speed. Personally, I'd go for Velocitor rounds. So, if you have to pick one gun for your survival prep, you can't go too far wrong with the Ruger 10/22. A long time ago (the 90s) in a land far, far away (Nixa, MO), a much younger me worked at a monotonous job doing something monotonous. Seriously, we did the same thing hundreds of times an hour, thousands of times a night. It was an entry level job that was guaranteed to pretty much stay entry level forever.
I'm not there any more, and soon, I could be making enough money with my books to make an actual living at it. I beat some pretty long odds just getting to where I am now. So, the question some people ask me is "How did you do it?" I wish I knew. I wish there was a formula for success I could just write down for you...hell, I wish there was a formula I could write down for ME! But if I could give you one piece of advice that I think would make everything else work, it's this: Start chasing contrails. See, back when I was working at the monotonous job, my best friend Roanen and I would do something different on our breaks than anyone else there. We'd walk around the building and dream big. We'd look up at the sky and see planes flying overhead, and we told each other we were going to be one of the people on those planes some day. We would talk about how our current project was going to help us become one of those people, going to conventions, having fans all over the US. We had no idea how we were going to do it, but we were sure we COULD do it. We had a dream, we had talent and we had determination. Who cared if we didn't have a clue? We knew we'd figure it out. One night, we noticed something else, something that made us stand out from everyone else there. Other people were having very different conversations than we were. We talked about our dreams, we talked story, we talked style, we talked about art and whether or not to do our graphic novel in black & white or in color. We made plans. Big plans. The people around us talked about each other. They complained about their neighbors, their job, their family. Their conversations never left the world they were in, except when they joked about winning the lottery. I think that if I had to pinpoint one moment when I knew both Roanen and I had a shot at beating the odds, it was during that one night. Because our focus was always on our dreams. When everyone else was looking down, focusing on things within arm's reach, we were looking up and we were chasing contrails. And we never stopped. So, at the end of each day, think about where your focus was in your free time. Was it on your dreams? I know, there are a thousand things that might demand your attention, but make room for your dreams. Look up sometimes, and never settle for what's in arm's reach. |
Ben Reeder
Author of the Zompoc Survivor and The Demon's Apprentice series. Occasional wit. Constant smart ass.
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The Books Books By Ben Reeder: The Demon's Apprentice The Page of Swords Vision Quest Charm School In Absentia The Verge Walker:Book 1 Zombies by Ben Reeder: Zompoc Survivor: Exodus Zompoc Survivor : Inferno Zompoc Survivor: Odyssey Ash Fall The Gathering Horde |