In which I do author stuff

Luther M. Siler

I will be in Louisville next weekend at ConGlomeration, held at the Crowne Plaza Hotel, also in Louisville. I have my usual table in Artist’s Alley– stand by for further information on that, as I don’t know exactly where I’ll be found yet– but I’m also doing four panels. From their programming page:

FRIDAY:

“Writing Compelling Dialog”
1pm | Perry
Ever wonder how writers manage that witty line or perfect turn of phrase as their characters mouth off to each other on the page? Join us to discuss the ins and outs of writing authentic and compelling dialog.

“Writing Compelling Characters”
2pm | Perry
From Doctor Who to Han Solo, to Spock, these fictional characters speak to us and move us, making their stories epic in a way that can’t be put into words. Come join us to discuss what makes a compelling character and how to write characters that will have your readers rooting for them long after they’ve put the book down.

SATURDAY:

“Success as an Indie Author”
1pm | Perry
Trying to make it as an independent author can be confusing and not a little frightening. Everything depends on you, and it’s up to you to make or break yourself in the field. Join some successful indie authors as they discuss ways to set yourself up for success and build your platform so that you can write stories you love and sell them to people who will love them just as much.

“Writing Fantasy”
8pm | Perry
Fantasy fiction has shaped our culture from ancient myths and fairy tales to current blockbusters and cult-followed classics. Join a panel of fantasy authors to discuss the elements of great fantasy writing and how to make your fantasy story the masterpiece it deserves to be.

I will leave it up to y’all to determine whether I deserve to be on any of these panels; the imposter syndrome is kicking in hard, I’ll admit, but fuck it I’m a teacher and I explain shit to people for a living and if I can’t BS my way through four independent hours of talking about writing … well, I absolutely can bullshit my way through four independent hours of talking about writing, is what I’m saying. I am assuming “Perry” is the name of the hall or the room they’re in, because surely they don’t have the same person moderating every writing panel. Again, more information will follow.

And then, the weekend after next, I’ll be at LaffyCon in Lafayette. This is a Saturday-Sunday only event, with no panels, although I might try and finagle my way into a podcast or something at some point.

After that, IndyPopCon in June, and then … well, I need to find some stuff to fill the summer up with, I think, because nothing else until Kokomo-Con X in October. Maybe I’ll do InConJunction again this year; it was the first one I ever went to so that might be fun. Plus it starts on my birthday.

Anyway, I’ve been designing new banners all day. They’re up on Patreon, even! And I ordered new books, and the point is I’ve spent an awful lot of money on being an author today, and you should go buy a couple of my books because Jesus is this shit expensive. But my new booth setup has potential to look super cool, and I’m excited about that.

In which my own marketing nearly kills me

Luther M. Siler1 Comment

I am not normally the type to read instructions, at least not at first. I’m perfectly happy to go over them once I’ve taken a shot at something, but my usual method is to muddle in and see if I can figure things out before touching the instructions. I’m not stubborn about it or anything like that; I just don’t go for the instructions first.

My new banner arrived today. I like it! It looks nice! And I should take a second and thank Jamie Noble Frier for the amazing artwork and Michael J. Martinez for the cover blurb. (Have you read Tales: The Benevolence Archives, Vol. 3 yet? Get on that.)

The new banner is built into that base. It did not come with instructions.

Have you ever used one of these things before? There is a tension rod behind the banner itself. It hooks into the metal piece at the top of the banner, but 1) you need to know the feet are there (they rotate underneath the base for ease of transport) and 2) you need to be standing on the feet before you try and pull the banner up because otherwise the base is going to snap up toward your hands after a second or two and the whole thing becomes very unwieldy and also 3) it is not immediately clear how to hook the top of the banner into the top of the tension rod, especially if you do what I think is the natural thing and try to pull the banner up while standing in front of it, meaning that you’re obscuring your view of the tension rod while you’re pulling the banner up.

This means that two or three times you will either lose your grip on the banner or you will not seat it properly and it will crash back down into the base at what is frankly a terrifying velocity and volume and you will yell loud swears and your son will ask you what is wrong in a vaguely frightened tone of voice that you will be ashamed for making him use.

So. For future reference:

  1. Rotate the feet out from underneath the enclosure so that they are perpendicular to the base.
  2. Stand on the feet, behind the banner.
  3. Insert the extended tension rod into both of the holes in the base. There are TWO holes. The second one is invisible and it will take a moment to get the rod into both. FIND THEM BOTH.
  4. While continuing to stand on the feet, lift the banner up over your head and insert the tab on the tension rod into the slot on the banner. TEST IT to make sure it is seated properly.
  5. Walk away slowly, terrified that your footsteps will transmit a shock to the banner through the floor and it will snap back into place.
  6. Do not touch the fucking thing again until you are ready to take it down, and when you are, do it very carefully.

Learn from my mistakes, y’all.

Okay this is a banners and finance blog now

Luther M. Siler

And video games. Because sometimes I talk about Sekiro. Which I discovered today I’ve put forty hours into since it came out … twelve days ago.

*coughs*

This is why I can’t get anything done.

So anyway. My computer is from 2011, right? It’s not dead yet but I’m looking at replacing it this summer sometime. I created that banner in GIMP, and the first thing I had to do was download the newest version of GIMP because the old one wasn’t compatible with my operating system any longer. The new one is giving my computer hiccups. Then I pulled up the template that I used to create my original Skylights banner and created the new banner.

I then tried to upload it and got barked at because of the resolution of the image– which, remember, they’ve already printed a banner from this exact template. Which, it turns out, was 100 DPI. They wanted 300.

Oh, and also a pull-up banner has slightly different dimensions than the one I originally had made. Oops!

I created a new version of the file at 300 DPI. My computer said “Uh, you know that’s 2.2 GB just for the template, right? And that I’m old?” And then it made some noises I’ve never heard before, and everything took a lot longer than it had on the original images. And I dunno if my images are gonna look right scaled up quite that much, although my cover file was supposed to be 300 DPI itself, it was also for a cover that was only like a foot wide and not three.

And then I dug around some more, and found their template– meaning the one the printer I want to use provides– and it’s 150 DPI.

So my computer will explode if I made the file 300 DPI, my original file was 100 DPI and the image looks fine, and their own templates are 150 DPI.

This will be fine, right?

In accordance with the advice received from many of you yesterday, I will not be cancelling the card. Interestingly, after griping about there not being some sort of simulator online I dug around and discovered that Capital One actually has a “what will this do to my credit?” tool on their website. Their suggestion was that cancelling that card will drop my credit score 5 points, and considering that it’s gone up 21 points in the last six months I can probably afford the hit.

Nonetheless, I’m following instructions.

A banner update and a finance question

Luther M. Siler4 Comments

This should probably be two posts because the two halves could not possibly be any less related to each other. But whatever. I’ve continued fiddling with the banners I posted yesterday and now I’m looking at this (which I posted to Patreon yesterday!):

Interesting fact: everyone who commented on the blog preferred the banner with the characters, and everyone who commented on Facebook preferred the one with the BA1 cover. This still isn’t final (I need to move the Prostetnic logo up a bit, take the capital letter out of the T in “Trilogies” and maybe change the font on the pull quote) so I’m still open for suggestions if anyone has them.

I paid off a credit card yesterday. Without getting too much more deeply into my business than is strictly necessary, I’ve spent my thirties and the first couple of years of my forties either a) managing or b) putting to bed bad financial decisions I made in my twenties. I have, in other words, more credit card debt than most people. My credit rating is on the high end of average, I think– I don’t miss payments, ever, but I have a lot of open credit and a lot of debt. I would like it to be higher, and I would like for a substantially lower amount of my paycheck to go toward paying off credit cards.

The card I paid off has been paid off before, for the record. The last time I paid it off I didn’t close it, and then I was unemployed for six months and underemployed for two years, so not cancelling it seems, in retrospect, to have been a pretty good decision, because as it turned out the available credit kinda saved me. However, it’s a Bank of America card (one of two I hold, because they bought this card from MBNA) and I kinda hate Bank of America and want to be out from underneath them. It’s *also* my longest continuous line of credit, though– I’ve had this account for over twenty years.

So: is it better for my credit to close the card, thus lowering my overall available credit (which I keep being told is hurting my credit rating) and reducing my dependency on Bank of America, or to hold onto the card with its zero balance, because it’s my longest continuous credit account (which I’m told helps my credit rating) and I can’t predict the future and who knows if I might need it again?

(I’m also not certain how much I need my credit rating to be high right now, for whatever that’s worth. We own our house and aren’t moving anytime soon and I see no reason why I might be applying for anything demanding a credit check any time in the foreseeable future. So maybe I can afford to take a hit right know? Who knows.)

I hate how opaque credit ratings are. There should be a formula I can feed this shit into and get an objective answer and I’m pretty sure even people who know what they’re talking about are gonna be mostly guessing. But if you know more than me, feel free to jump in with advice, because I don’t know shit.

In which I need opinions

Luther M. Siler2 Comments

I’ve got two cons this month, and I want to bring at least one new banner with me. It makes sense for that to be connected to the Benevolence Archives since I have three books in that series. Ideally, I’d like to use the cover from Tales from the Benevolence Archives, since it has my characters on it. So I’ve been fiddling with that. And, well…

The issue here is the background color, which is defeating my meager abilities with image manipulation. I’m not a huge fan of the black. I could use a gradient, but I’ve not been able to find one that works in a way that I like with the top line of the cover image since it’s not a solid color. Also, the Prostetnic logo at the bottom probably needs to shrink a little. I can take or leave using the actual book logo or just choosing a better font (and going with a generic “Benevolence Archives” is probably not a bad idea) so … something like a combination of this image and this:

Neither of the cover images are really the right size to make them the entire background; I have no choice but to have some space somewhere, either at the top, the bottom, or both. So I think keeping it middle-ish is my best bet.

Anyone out there have strong opinions on how to handle this, or willing to fake having strong opinions?