Sleeping with the Editor

Don’t tell anyone. I’ve been sleeping with my editor.

Now, as it happens, my editor is my wife, so it probably shouldn’t come as any surprise to anyone who knows us. However, being married to your editor comes with various dangers.

For instance, she has been known to throw shoes at me when I use the word “just” too often. And she has thrown many shoes at me.

Or when she brings up that she needs my revisions by yesterday while I’m trying to enjoy a game of Super Mario Wonder.

All in all, though, it’s been a huge blessing.

The simplest part of the blessing is the cost. A good editor will cost you literally thousands of dollars for all the steps of a novel. I don’t have to pay her! Why not? Because we’re a team.

And as part of that, I trust her edits. I know that her goal is to create the best book possible. She takes my story and improves it so much. She is amazing, her edits are right on, and I know that she’s not doing this as “a job” but because she wants to create good books, too.

That trust goes a long, long way. I know many authors that trust their editors, but not all the way. Or they think their editors are trying to tear them down. Or they relegate any criticism to just grammar and not the shape of the story.

With me, though? I know my wife. I trust her with my life, and even more, with my books.

Point of fact: Our books. Her name really needs to be on the cover. Someday she’ll agree to that!

Being married to my editor also means she can get a hold of me whenever. We see each other pretty often, after all. So if she needs to ask about this or that, she doesn’t have to shoot me an email. She just asks from the other side of the room. And then I say, “Huh?” She repeats herself. Again, I didn’t hear her. She throws a shoe. This time I finally give her my attention, and she gets an immediate answer, simple as that!

Yes, it’s a good thing I’m sleeping with my editor. She’s pretty cool.

Not Crafty Enough

Swords or spaceships?

It’s a fun thing to ask at passers-by at vendor fairs, we’re finding. It draws people in. Depending their answer, we’ll know whether to talk about Cade and the Last Starship or Madelyn of the Sky. And honestly, it’s fun to see people’s responses.

Some people are disgusted. Why would anyone like either of those? Well, we know that such people are not our target audience. We all like our own things; go like your things. We’ll try to find people that like our things!

Some people are drawn in toward the sword fighting. They love movies like The Princess Bride. (And really, everyone should love that movie.)

And some people get excited about spaceships. Science fiction? Yes please!

These are my people.

But, alas, selling books isn’t for every vendor fair. We applied to join a vendor fair advertising specifically for “something different.” They mentioned they already had enough T-shirt vendors, water bottle vendors, etc. They wanted something unique.

But not books.

Honestly, it’s probably for the best. I assume the organizers know their audience enough to know that we wouldn’t fit in there. That’s fine.

We also got word this week that we won’t (likely) be in the big area comic con in September. The venue is under construction, and the new location is a third the size. They couldn’t fit everyone in that applied.

On the other hand, we’ve been invited to table at our comic shop’s Free Comic Book Day in a month, and I’m looking forward to that! I suspect, “Swords or spaceships?” will be a good match for that audience! Also, I adore the owners of our comic shop. They’re just good people.

So I guess our books aren’t crafty enough for some craft fairs, but they’re still good books. And we’ll keep getting out there to share our stories!

Also, you can now preorder Cade and the Final Harvest, the last of the Cade books! Go check it out! It releases April 15.

Books are Crafty, Right?

To our left, a woman sells crocheted purses. Most people are paying attention to her crocheted octopus. It has little octopi stuffed inside of it. It’s honestly one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen.

To our right, a man sells gorgeous woodwork. Most if it is religious. He’s very dedicated.

Across the aisle, a woman sells handmade jewelry. She spent most of the first hour of the show putting bags of her items on a rack.

And then there’s us. We’ve got copies of Madelyn of the Sky and Cade. We’ve got our display banners up.

We’re the only booksellers at this craft show. We’re trying something new for us. We figure, hey, we made the books, right? I crafted them! I figure that because we’re the only booksellers, we’ll stand out. That means either more sales, because people will be intrigued at something different, or we’ll sell nothing, because we simply don’t belong.

The day was a bit of an adventure. We had a lot of people surprised there were books. Several vendors wished us luck. A bunch of people were honored to meet a real, live author.

A am real. I live! I also write books. I’m a real, live author!

At one point, a high school(?) couple walked by. The girl pointed and shouted, “BOOKS! Look, it’s BOOKS!”

The boy shook his head. “I don’t read books.”

“Maybe you should! Then you’d be smart!”

He sniffed in disdain and paraded past.

Alas. Clearly not our intended audience, but I feel bad for him.

At one point, a mom and her son approached. He really wanted to get Cade, and she was happy to get book one for him. She found out the price we were asking for the whole series, and stunned, she wanted to get them all.

“No. I just want book one,” the kid said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

So they just got book one.

We had a lot of fun interactions with people. We sold enough to more than cover the cost of the table and lunch. Since we had no idea how we’d do going in, I’ll count that as a win this time around.

It was a good day. A nice, short show, only one day long, in comfortable environs and people who welcomed us as unique vendors.

Are we doing it again? Maybe. The hard part is a lot of craft shows in the area take place over a weekend, and with me being a pastor, I don’t take many Sundays off. This one was perfect, with it being just a Saturday. If we find more shows like that in the area, we very well may give this another try.

And for you? Have you ever seen a bookseller in an unusual location? Did you give their books a try?

The Readerless Book

I just finished writing another book you may never read!

This last month, I sat down and wrote a book about me struggling with my depression. It’s a fictionalized autobiography. In other words, me and my emotions are real, but the people around me are not. I didn’t want to villainize anyone or cause hardships.

So… I guess it’s not an autobiography. At all. It’s just about a writer who has depression.

Anyway.

Every once in a while, I write a book simply for me. I do revise and polish it. But will anyone else’s eyes ever see it? Doubtful.

Why is that?

Well, right now I write mostly for middle school audiences. I’ve got some YA coming down the way and some books for younger audiences, too. But this book on depression that talks very bluntly about it? I suppose you could say it’s YA appropriate, but that’s certainly not the target audience.

After all, I wrote it for me. I’m the target audience, and I ain’t a young adult no more.

Why waste the time with a book that likely will never see print? Why pour in the effort and the sweat and blood? After all, I have literal series of books in my queue to be written. This just makes them wait longer!

I already said. I wrote it for me. I needed to get this out. Right now I’m struggling with depression (ah, the perennial problem!), and this is one way I can deal with it. By pinning the depression down in digital ink, I can look at it and see it for what it is: lies.

Will it get published eventually? Maybe. I’ll have my wife look at it when she has the time, and I’ll trust her opinion. This may end up like the Christian R-rated horror novel I wrote some years ago, though. Set aside, since there likely isn’t much of an audience.

But this month, it’s back to the regular writing goals. I’ve got a novel to get to work on.

So… time to get writing!

Can We Hurry Up Now?

You ever follow any publishers on social media? I’ve got a few favorites that I get newsletters from or follow on Instagram. Enclave Publishing, Orbit Books, and Angry Robot are among them. I’ve noticed a thing that apparently works in marketing in general, but doesn’t for me in specific.

The publisher will make a big deal about a cover reveal. They’ll let you know that you’ll get to see the new cover real soon! Then the reveal comes with all the pomp! It’s honestly pretty exciting getting this sneak peek. I don’t mind that at all!

And then it’ll still be several months before the book is released. They will advertise it for all those months, though, so by the time the book comes out, it’s old news to me, personally.

I understand the idea. Build anticipation! Get people excited! Gather preorders! And, as I said, apparently it works in general. For me, though, all the noise actually makes me less excited.

I’ve found that most marketing wisdom just doesn’t make sense to me, but then again, I’m hardly a “normal” reader. That’s nothing new.

I’ve found that for me, too, the stretch of time between writing and publishing seems to take forever. For instance, Cade book 5, Cade and the Sleeping Scouts, released yesterday! You can pick up the next book of the saga, as Cade and his friends finally discover the truths that have been hidden for 400 years. It’s a big deal. I really like this book. It’s got a lot more action than previous installments of the series, and those weren’t exactly slow books!

But I drafted book 5 over a year ago. I’m drafting two entire series ahead of Cade right now. So as we’re supposed to be very excited to release it, my mind is already far away.

It’s a little frustrating, really. We got our shipment of books, and I was busy writing. Look! Another book for our shelf! Okay, now back to writing.

On Twitter, someone asked what child-you would be blown away by your current life. I wrote that child-me would be astounded by how many books I’ve written and published, and that I’m writing so fast. And I would be blown away!

So for you, I’m excited. Cade and the Sleeping Scouts is great. Maybe I’m biased, but Cade has become such a good series. The twists, the turns, the characters, the world, I’m proud of what I’ve created.

For me, I’m busy writing an entirely different series.

Ack!