Alright ladies and gentlemen, I’m in charge of the post this week, so two things:
It’s late.
And I get to ask our guest a question here before the show even begins! I always want to ask our guests this, and John was kind enough to answer it for me before we get started.
**I’d like to note, John Monk is the nicest.
I’ll link to his extremely well-selling books in a moment (With “Kick”, for instance…it’s not often you see someone with 251 Amazon reviews and ZERO of them are 1-stars. Is that even possible?!). I first wanted to ask him why he started writing, and this is what he shared:
There were phases to me becoming “John L. Monk the self-published author”, each with its own set of challenges.
1) Childhood/teenager: I used to read a lot of books, always fantasy and sic-fi, and I remember being so incredibly amazed at how good they were. I remember looking around at people who weren’t reading and thinking “What’s wrong with these people? They’re totally missing out.” Like all writers, it was a natural step for me to try imitating the books I was reading. In my case, I plagiarized Terry Brooks and David Eddings and Ursula Le Guin. I stole all their character names and the best action scenes and rewrote the scenes, then turned them in for my English classes. And I don’t regret it a bit.
2) 20’s and 30’s: I tried writing novels and never finished them. My writing was horrid, but I like to think there was still “something” there that I’d eventually draw on — some kernel of quality. One of the books I started was about a virtual world where people’s bodies were warehoused together. The company that did this wired all their brains together and created a virtual world where they could have magical powers and do amazing things. Then the Wachowski Brothers created The Matrix and I gave up in disgust. For me, it was always easy to get started, but never easy to finish. These days, I can do both, but like all of us indies, it’s come down to a matter of speed and even money. Covers and editing cost a lot, and quality can’t be compromised.
One of our favorite listeners, Patrick Stemp, has been suggesting we have John on for ages, so I’m really excited to talk to him tonight! See you soon : )
Michelle
First!!!! Like a boss. Thank god it’s Thursday, I need a Thursday.
Dammit. Not first. See you in an hour. *sulk*
PatrickStemp She made the page. Shouldn’t count, Stemper!
Are you groovy? I’m groovy. Good evening Thursday night irregulars.
YAY, I’m not late! I might even make the after party tonight, michelleread!
Wut^
michelleread Thankfully, it’s my Friday today. *happy*
Made it back in time! Good evening all.
PatrickStemp Heya, Patick. Nice night for a podcast, innit?
Aaaand we’re live!
John’s books… http://www.amazon.com/John-L.-Monk/e/B00DSUEOAG/
X you can do it!
Proud of you handle it!
matmorrisauthor I’m digging those covers. Who did them, please?
Or Ultima Online… where my husband was a gamemaster…!
Hello
MrJohnRead Ciao
SOMEONE?! That’s it, xgranville–I’m taking my Tardis and going home.
MrJohnRead Hey John
MrJohnRead Hello!
CateMorgan xgranville Noooo!
CateMorgan xgranville But I have bananas, celery and a fez!
xgranville CateMorgan Sounds like a party to me
Mat, did I miss your show today?
John’s Awesome Indies are for real awesome… Dell Zero was cool, and PT Hylton’s Regulation 19 was as well. He knows some good reads 🙂
Do we have any questions for our guest?
Wish I could hit up SFSE
PatrickStemp I hadn’t heard of it until now…but I’m less than an hour a way. I’ll have to look it up.
CateMorgan PatrickStemp Do eeet!
CateMorgan PatrickStemp I would just love to meet some of the folks I’ve met online IRL. I’m a little more than an hour away :
PatrickStemp CateMorgan SPRT SE! SPRT SE!
PatrickStemp i would love to… I was at Armadillocon lat weekend and it was so trad pub bent to almost to the point of alienating indies. Would love to go to a con that had panels for indies.
is there a possibility for a SESW?
ChrishaunKellerHanna Too… many…acronyms! *pop*
ChrishaunKellerHanna PatrickStemp I remember those horror stories of some cons relegating indies to separate rooms from the trads. Sad.
xgranville ChrishaunKellerHanna They’re not quite as tasty as Alpha Bits, are they? *crunch crunch*
CateMorgan xgranville ChrishaunKellerHanna sorry… I just want a indie friendly con in Tx.
xgranville Can John go a little bit into how he went about getting his first reviews?
How big are his books for 4.99?
ChrishaunKellerHanna 275-300 pages or something.
ChrishaunKellerHanna Length doesn’t really matter, honestly.
xgranville ChrishaunKellerHanna about 70,000
matmorrisauthor ChrishaunKellerHanna Um, that’s what she said?
matmorrisauthor ChrishaunKellerHanna why do you say so, friend?
matmorrisauthor ChrishaunKellerHanna Quality is key.
ChrishaunKellerHanna matmorrisauthor It’s much more about quality than length.
ChrishaunKellerHanna But even then… it’s more of a business decision than anything else.
matmorrisauthor ChrishaunKellerHanna (the 12 year old in me is trying hard no to giggle)
KBoards. Bah.
PatrickSzabo Bah. Black Sheep.
xgranville PatrickSzabo I miss that place.
Mat = Pirate Cyborg!
RChazzChute Possible Illuminati?
RChazzChute Mat didn’t get to go on his retreat. Womp womp.
xgranville RChazzChute -possible
Yeah, BookTubers are cool. Probably tough to get. And they prefer paper over digital it seems.
matmorrisauthor xgranville RChazzChute most certainly a man in BeastMode!
When Amazon had Amazon Shorts (you could only upload it if you had a published book on the site), 2.99 was the price of a story under 7000 words. I was wondering (bad wording) if you could price higher.
Peter Jackson huh? You can have your LOTR…I’ll take The Frighteners any day! Michael J. Fox FTW.
I would look REALLY close at the numbers that DWS and Rusch move before taking too much of their advice. They just don’t sell that much.
PatrickSzabo I agree. Gotta be comfortable with your sales in order to sell others on anything you do.
A little grain of salt? How about a salt lick.
PatrickSzabo Generally they give some good advice. You can’t take it as an absolute.
matmorrisauthor PatrickSzabo Key word there is some. Most of it is fantasy-land advice.
Any thoughts on pricing strategies for a single novel that doesn’t have sequels?
Philip Harris Do you have any other books?
I’m out. Night guys.
matmorrisauthor Philip Harris Some short stories and a novella at the moment. They’re in a similar genre but not identical.
Philip Harris matmorrisauthor I’d say price it mostly whatever you want, and keep writing novels. Preferably in a series, but whatever.
I say mostly whatever you want, I’d go 3.99-4.99, which will give you the chance to discount it and get some visibility when you release another novel.
matmorrisauthor Philip Harris My thought as well. 3.99-4.99 just for the flex room.
matmorrisauthor Philip Harris xgranville Thanks, I was thinking something along those lines. Probably 3.99.
I gotta go… good night my darlings!
AFTER PARTY!
https://plus.google.com/hangouts/_/hoaevent/AP36tYch_8w_YEh18DHzP4INi3tzKWjtBWEsnf9Q08kTBpQEjM5-Hw
ChrishaunKellerHanna xgranville heya 🙂 Kick was 85k, Fool’s was 79k, and Hopper House is 85k. The “estimated pages” thingy on Amazon is kinda skimpy hehe.
CateMorgan matmorrisauthor Damonza did book 1 & 2, e.e. Giorgi did book 3 🙂