So, weird thing: for the first time at one of these, I have no cosplay pictures to post today. Attendance wasn’t stellar but the folks who were here were buying; my next sale will pay off my booth, moving me into the coveted Sorta Profit status, where I’ve made money if I ignore travel, food, lodging, and the fact that I had to pay to order the merchandise I’m selling. And the broken car window. It will take … a few more sales to get beyond that.
But for whatever reason there really weren’t a whole lot of cosplayers today, and the only one who really caught my attention didn’t get close enough to me for me to get a picture of him. The masquerade ball is tomorrow, and it’s after the dealer room closes, so if nothing else I’ll try to get some pictures there.
The two panels I did went very well, I thought, particularly since they were scheduled during the first two hours of the convention and I was expecting next to no attendance. I’m really looking forward to my two tomorrow.
But now I must be asleep so that I’m still alive for it.
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.
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.
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:
Rotate the feet out from underneath the enclosure so that they are perpendicular to the base.
Stand on the feet, behind the banner.
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.
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.
Walk away slowly, terrified that your footsteps will transmit a shock to the banner through the floor and it will snap back into place.
Do not touch the fucking thing again until you are ready to take it down, and when you are, do it very carefully.
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?
I can be found in several different places on the Internet. Here are the important ones:
Support me on Patreon! Just a dollar a month gets you access to exclusive stories, early access to new books as they come out, and more! $2 or more a month gets you access to CLICK, an entire exclusive book!
You can follow me on Twitter, @nfinitefreetime, here or just click the “follow” button on the right side of the page. Warning: Twitter is where Politics Luther hangs out, and Politics Luther is usually angry and profane. I generally follow back if I can tell you’re a human being.
My author page on Goodreads is here. I accept any and all friend requests.
My official Author page on Amazon is located here.
Feel free to Like the (sadly underutilized) Luther Siler Facebook page here. It’s mostly used as a reblogger for posts.
And, of course, you’re already at infinitefreetime.com, my blog. You can click here to be taken to a random post.
I can be found in several different places on the Internet. Here are the important ones:
Support me on Patreon! Just a dollar a month gets you access to exclusive stories, early access to new books as they come out, and more! $2 or more a month gets you access to CLICK, an entire exclusive book!
You can follow me on Twitter, @nfinitefreetime, here or just click the “follow” button on the right side of the page. Warning: Twitter is where Politics Luther hangs out, and Politics Luther is usually angry and profane. I generally follow back if I can tell you’re a human being.
My author page on Goodreads is here. I accept any and all friend requests.
My official Author page on Amazon is located here.
Feel free to Like the (sadly underutilized) Luther Siler Facebook page here. It’s mostly used as a reblogger for posts.
And, of course, you’re already at infinitefreetime.com, my blog. You can click here to be taken to a random post.
I’m basically done with the “break” part of my break; I have the weekend and then I’m back to work on Monday. Usually by this point at the break I’m climbing the walls and chewing on my extremities; for the most part, other than yesterday’s post, I’ve managed to avoid going slowly crazy. I’ve gotten a fair amount of stuff done over the break. What I haven’t done is any of Luther’s stuff. It’s all been Clark Kent nonsense over here for the last couple of weeks.
My first priority in 2019 has to be to decide what to do with Skylights. I have so many half-written drafts of the sequel, under more than one title, that it’s frankly kind of ridiculous. That may or may not be the cover. It may or may not be the title. And once I have the sequel written I have to decide if I’m doing a second edition of the first book. A second edition wouldn’t be too different, but the first book already mentions things that didn’t happen in 2018 (because 2018 was, comfortably, The Future when I wrote it) and the events of the book are at this point far too close to Now for comfort. If nothing else, I need to remove specific dates, and probably rewrite the prologue to give the story some breathing room. I don’t think I can tie the events of the story so close to something that happened in 1984, for example; it just makes Gabe too old.
(20-minute break while I research the FAFSA and explain how taxes work for a former student; I avoid using the phrase “this would be easier if I adopted you.”)
Anyway, point is I gotta figure this shit out. And I probably should have reformatted some of my books to get them away from CreateSpace and over to Ingram over the break. And maybe done a new banner, since the one vertical banner I have is Skylights-focused. I should probably have one for at least one more of my books.
Point is, I didn’t spend as much time being Luther over the last couple of weeks as maybe I should have. And now I need to figure some stuff out over the next couple of days. This week shouldn’t be too hard (he said,) so I should have some brainspace left to get things done when I get home from work. And who knows? The next couple of days might be hugely productive.
Just, like I said, I’ve got some decisions to make, and a weight to get off my back.
This is going to be a very short post, considering the amount of work that went into it, because Amazon and Square don’t play nice with each other and neither of them makes it especially easy to get these numbers in a format that I like. HOWEVER! I haven’t looked at book sales in a systematic way in a while, so this kinda needed to happen. And, frankly, included some nice surprises.
Note that “Amazon” includes both paid sales and free downloads, and I’ve smushed together both physical and digital copies as well; nearly all of them are digital. The Square sales are sales in person; some of those are going to be free giveaways for one reason or another but all of them involve physical books given or sold to people by me. This is 2018 only:
Eight hundred and fifty-seven books seems like a lot, honestly. The little discrepancy you see with Click from 2018 to the total includes the 14 people who got free copies through Patreon, which is one of the only ways you can get the book (pledge more than $2 a month!) and the 9 on the Square set were sold in person at conventions, which is the other way to get it.
As of right now, my books are starting to drop off of KDP Select, which means I’m about to lose the ability to give them away on Amazon. I am either trying to get all six of them (Click isn’t on Amazon) on the same schedule or about to broaden back out and put my books on other sites again. I haven’t decided. As of January 2nd, everything will be off KDP select, so I’ve got a few more days to think about it.
The overall numbers really surprised me. I didn’t think I’d moved this many books.
So, basically, if you include the occasional sale that isn’t captured here (Barnes and Noble, Apple, non-convention personal sales that I didn’t bother recording in Square,) I’m probably at right around five thousand books sold or downloaded since I started doing this.
Which, on the one hand, is a larger number than I thought it was going to be, and on the other hand, if I look at actual money earned from this … yeesh. I’m not going to share that because Amazon accepts currencies from all over the world and I’m not about to start digging through my tax returns, but suffice it to say that I’ve absolutely lost money at playing author since 2014. Cons and hotel rooms and book printings and all that cost money, and again, a lot of those Amazon numbers are from giveaways, not sales.
The totals for in-person sales, which are included in the above– this is just a summation of the “Square” lines:
Which, again, this isn’t nothing. Every one of these represents an actual human standing in front of me who bought books from me. Am I J.K. Rowling? Hell no. But this is a lot larger of a number than zero, which is what it would have been when I started doing this.
I should probably set some hard and fast goals for 2019. Not yet; I need to absorb these numbers first. But maybe that post is coming. Tomorrow, the 10 best books of the year.
Welcome to infinitefreetime dot com 