The exhaustive resources of Bagnoose Media International have been unleashed to create a media onslaught to promote The Spy Who Loathed Me.
Click here http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7S59A and you will be taken to my Amazon Author page. There, marvel at the The Spy Who Loathed Me puppet rap, the Bikini Kickboxer, and, yes, the talking Hostess Fruit Pie. You can also order The Spy Who Loathed Me in paperback, or on Kindle.
I am a novelist and humor writer. "The Pyongyang Paradox," the fourth book in my comedic trilogy, "The Chronicles of Huttle," is now available from Genius Books, and on Audible! See links on the right side of this page!
Sunday, February 24, 2013
The Spy Who Loathed Me can be ordered Monday, February 24 on Amazon, and through major chains! The Kindle version will also be available on that day. If you were a kickstarter backer, I am working on sending you the Kindle download code.
If you read the book, PLEASE review it on Amazon! This is one of the most important ways for it to get noticed. I will be setting up readings in the Bay Area, as well as in Southern California, in the coming weeks.
Thanks again for your support.
More news & information later.
If you read the book, PLEASE review it on Amazon! This is one of the most important ways for it to get noticed. I will be setting up readings in the Bay Area, as well as in Southern California, in the coming weeks.
Thanks again for your support.
More news & information later.
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Progress Report
Thanks to all the backers of my successful Kickstarter campaign, which concluded a couple of months ago. Since then, I've had the book edited, done extensive rewriting, had the cover and interior designed, and today I delivered to the designer the last of the corrections to the galleys. So, within the next few days we should be sending the book to Createspace. I'll get a proof from them and see if everything's okay. Then it's done, and all of my patient backers will receive their signed books.
Next step is promotion. I solicited reviews on Goodreads, and those blurbs will be on the back cover. But I consider this first wave of books more of a promotional tool. I'll use it to solicit reviews from established sources, and to get blurbs from name writers. Today, I wrote letters to Jonathan Coe, Gary Shteyngart, Martin Amis, and Christopher Buckley, and TC Boyle, all of whom I admire greatly. It's something of a long shot, but I'm hoping they'll blurb. Once I get the books in hand, they'll go out to these writers, and a few others. I'll also send out review copies at that time.
The beauty of POD is that I can make tweaks and changes. After all of the proof-reading I've paid to have done, and done myself, it would flabbergast me if there's a typo. But there probably are some. I can fix those. I can add quotes from prominent writers or reviewers.
I'm also interested in doing readings in Ventura County and in the Bay area, where there were a lot of Kickstarter backers. If all the backers invite just a few friends to the reading, I should have a full house. I'm thinking I'll have a laptop on hand, too, and ask my backers do write a one sentence Amazon review on the spot. Getting noticed is all about reviews.
I'm also hoping, with the assistance of my fine son Drew, to set up a reading in New York, thinking I'll be out there to visit him sometime in May or early June.
Lastly, I went to fiverr.com, looking for promotional items I can buy. I commissioned an a cappella song about the book, and I'll post it when I can figure out how.
Ciao
Friday, August 31, 2012
Getting my kicks
Launched a Kickstarter to fund publication of The Spy Who Loathed Me.
Here's a link: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/426786889/the-spy-who-loathed-me-a-tale-of-love-lies-and-fru
Look at the Update videos, too.
So far, so good: 23 percent funded. Kickstarter stats indicate that if you reach 20 percent you have an 82 percent chance of the project fully funding.
Fingers crossed.
Here's a link: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/426786889/the-spy-who-loathed-me-a-tale-of-love-lies-and-fru
Look at the Update videos, too.
So far, so good: 23 percent funded. Kickstarter stats indicate that if you reach 20 percent you have an 82 percent chance of the project fully funding.
Fingers crossed.
Thursday, July 19, 2012
New Directions
I know New Directions sounds like a Christian publishing company, or a storefront therapy shop in some windblown strip mall. But, dear readers, it is nothing of the sort. I think I've espoused the view that traditional publishing is dead, so I am an advocate of electronic publishing.
The new direction I'm speaking about is launching The Spy Who Loathed Me as a trade paperback. Yes, for the long run I still believe that digital publication is the way to go. But how does one establish a market to begin with? I think I've found a way. Ten years ago, the only option would have been to fork over several thousand dollars to a printer, and weeks later take possession of several crates of books which would probably remain unopened in the garage, collecting dust and spiders.
We now have Print on Demand. One buyer. One book. No spiders.
More importantly, in terms of financing and cultivating buyers, we have micro fund-raising platforms like Kickstarter.
I know several people who have successfully launched their own creative projects with Kickstarter, raising $5,000 to $15,000, and I think this system is a very exciting trend in the arts. Call it micro patronage. It returns power to the artists, but it also confers some responsibility on them. That is, if the project is not interesting to buyers, it won't get funded... so maybe it needs some work. The beauty of it is, though, that through the Internet it is accessible to virtually the entire world.
People raise anywhere from $500 to millions of dollars. I saw today that Charlie Kaufman, the writer of Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and others films, has launched a campaign to raise $200,000 to finance a stop-frame animation picture. He reached his goal in a couple of days. Good for Charlie.
My goals will be more modest. I'm going to be seeking under $4,000, which will finance copy editing, cover and interior design, printing, packaging, shipping, and other expenses for the publication of The Spy Who Loathed Me. At once, I will have the book published, have some readers who I hope will write reviews, and, viola, I have launched the book.
So, if you're reading this, consider yourself an insider. I'm hoping to have it up by the end of August, so keep an eye out!
The new direction I'm speaking about is launching The Spy Who Loathed Me as a trade paperback. Yes, for the long run I still believe that digital publication is the way to go. But how does one establish a market to begin with? I think I've found a way. Ten years ago, the only option would have been to fork over several thousand dollars to a printer, and weeks later take possession of several crates of books which would probably remain unopened in the garage, collecting dust and spiders.
We now have Print on Demand. One buyer. One book. No spiders.
More importantly, in terms of financing and cultivating buyers, we have micro fund-raising platforms like Kickstarter.
I know several people who have successfully launched their own creative projects with Kickstarter, raising $5,000 to $15,000, and I think this system is a very exciting trend in the arts. Call it micro patronage. It returns power to the artists, but it also confers some responsibility on them. That is, if the project is not interesting to buyers, it won't get funded... so maybe it needs some work. The beauty of it is, though, that through the Internet it is accessible to virtually the entire world.
People raise anywhere from $500 to millions of dollars. I saw today that Charlie Kaufman, the writer of Being John Malkovich, Adaptation, and others films, has launched a campaign to raise $200,000 to finance a stop-frame animation picture. He reached his goal in a couple of days. Good for Charlie.
My goals will be more modest. I'm going to be seeking under $4,000, which will finance copy editing, cover and interior design, printing, packaging, shipping, and other expenses for the publication of The Spy Who Loathed Me. At once, I will have the book published, have some readers who I hope will write reviews, and, viola, I have launched the book.
So, if you're reading this, consider yourself an insider. I'm hoping to have it up by the end of August, so keep an eye out!
Monday, May 7, 2012
What's Paper Got to Do With It?
Last week, I met with my friend, who shall remain nameless for no reason other than I haven't told him that I would be trumpeting his name to my millions of followers. I'll just make up a name: Larry Shames. Damn! That really is his name. Oh, well.
Along with a busy career as a ghostwriter, Larry is the author of a series of eight crime novels set in Key West. But his most recent title is off-genre for him--that is, not a part of his series--and Larry has decided to epublish it.
"Up until eighteen months ago, I was a snob," he told me. "I thought if you weren't published on paper, you weren't really a writer. But I've totally changed my mind. Traditional publishing is dead." I won't claim that this is an exact quote, but it's very close. Close enough to avoid charges of libel, anyway. Larry, if you're out there, please correct me.
It wasn't as though his insight was a surprise. However, it was reassuring to me to hear it from yet another who is established, and has a solid record of sales over a long period of time.
Over lunch, we spoke for a couple of hours about writing and publishing. Among the smart things Larry has done is to release his backlist as ebooks, which involved, first, securing the rights from his publisher. Having accomplished that, he had the books scanned and formatted, and had new cover art designed. All of it was accomplished by a company called geniusbookservices.com. They did a great job on his books, and when I'm ready--which will be soon--I expect I'll use them.
As for quality of writing, let me pervert the Tina Turner song from the 90s: "What's paper got to do with it?" There are thousands upon thousands of well-written ebooks. And, it's true, there are thousands upon thousands of poorly written ones.
Obviously, with no barrier to entry, anyone can epublish, so there's a lot of drek out there, supporting the position that writers need gatekeepers, in the form of agents and editors, to vet their work before unleashing it on the unwary public. But the market does have wisdom: witness Joe Konrath, Amanda Hocking, and, I hope, Larry Shames, and me.
When the gatekeepers work for and serve just a half-dozen giant conglomerates it can only be expected that their standards will change, and that the gate will get narrower. The result, of course, has been that publishers have gone the way of the film industry, spending all their money on a few brand name writers, then tossing crumbs to the rest, who will be lucky if they earn back their piddling advance.
The big names don't even make back their multi-million dollar advances, but the publishing giants would be too embarrassed to let them go. Can you say, "John Carter?" That is, for those who are not movie buffs, a reference to the recent flop John Carter, which cost Disney $250 million (at least), and cost studio head Rich Ross his job. I'm not worried about Rich Ross. He'll fail upward. But squandering that sum of money on a film is, of course, analogous to publishers squandering millions on a title by a name-brand writer not because it's great, but because it'll be a tent pole, a profit center (they hope) and a builder of prestige. Meanwhile, a couple hundred writers who would have been thrilled to get a $10,000 advance are out in the cold; like John Carter, shivering on Mars. Big pub--as people more worthy than I have observed--has forsaken its responsibility to find and nurture new talent, and to expand the art form. It has succumbed to the same blockbuster, shopping mall, commodification, fast food mentality that has, and continues to, destroy individuality not just in culture, but in commerce as well.
I suppose this is a little like railing against gravity. There clearly are economic, technological, and cultural reasons that traditional publishing has taken this route. But ebooks give writers the chance to escape their particular gravitational pull.
Maybe there's a happy medium. Agents, as in Larry's case, are moving into more of a publishing model. They're still gatekeepers, but are not beholden to big pub. Without the overhead of publishers, or the costs of printing, perhaps the market will create an opportunity for them to once again discover and develop new talent, and earn the allegiance of readers and writers alike.
Along with a busy career as a ghostwriter, Larry is the author of a series of eight crime novels set in Key West. But his most recent title is off-genre for him--that is, not a part of his series--and Larry has decided to epublish it.
"Up until eighteen months ago, I was a snob," he told me. "I thought if you weren't published on paper, you weren't really a writer. But I've totally changed my mind. Traditional publishing is dead." I won't claim that this is an exact quote, but it's very close. Close enough to avoid charges of libel, anyway. Larry, if you're out there, please correct me.
It wasn't as though his insight was a surprise. However, it was reassuring to me to hear it from yet another who is established, and has a solid record of sales over a long period of time.
Over lunch, we spoke for a couple of hours about writing and publishing. Among the smart things Larry has done is to release his backlist as ebooks, which involved, first, securing the rights from his publisher. Having accomplished that, he had the books scanned and formatted, and had new cover art designed. All of it was accomplished by a company called geniusbookservices.com. They did a great job on his books, and when I'm ready--which will be soon--I expect I'll use them.
As for quality of writing, let me pervert the Tina Turner song from the 90s: "What's paper got to do with it?" There are thousands upon thousands of well-written ebooks. And, it's true, there are thousands upon thousands of poorly written ones.
Obviously, with no barrier to entry, anyone can epublish, so there's a lot of drek out there, supporting the position that writers need gatekeepers, in the form of agents and editors, to vet their work before unleashing it on the unwary public. But the market does have wisdom: witness Joe Konrath, Amanda Hocking, and, I hope, Larry Shames, and me.
When the gatekeepers work for and serve just a half-dozen giant conglomerates it can only be expected that their standards will change, and that the gate will get narrower. The result, of course, has been that publishers have gone the way of the film industry, spending all their money on a few brand name writers, then tossing crumbs to the rest, who will be lucky if they earn back their piddling advance.
The big names don't even make back their multi-million dollar advances, but the publishing giants would be too embarrassed to let them go. Can you say, "John Carter?" That is, for those who are not movie buffs, a reference to the recent flop John Carter, which cost Disney $250 million (at least), and cost studio head Rich Ross his job. I'm not worried about Rich Ross. He'll fail upward. But squandering that sum of money on a film is, of course, analogous to publishers squandering millions on a title by a name-brand writer not because it's great, but because it'll be a tent pole, a profit center (they hope) and a builder of prestige. Meanwhile, a couple hundred writers who would have been thrilled to get a $10,000 advance are out in the cold; like John Carter, shivering on Mars. Big pub--as people more worthy than I have observed--has forsaken its responsibility to find and nurture new talent, and to expand the art form. It has succumbed to the same blockbuster, shopping mall, commodification, fast food mentality that has, and continues to, destroy individuality not just in culture, but in commerce as well.
I suppose this is a little like railing against gravity. There clearly are economic, technological, and cultural reasons that traditional publishing has taken this route. But ebooks give writers the chance to escape their particular gravitational pull.
Maybe there's a happy medium. Agents, as in Larry's case, are moving into more of a publishing model. They're still gatekeepers, but are not beholden to big pub. Without the overhead of publishers, or the costs of printing, perhaps the market will create an opportunity for them to once again discover and develop new talent, and earn the allegiance of readers and writers alike.
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