cluck: May 2008 Archives

The reviews are coming in clumps today - a good omen for the Book Expo America, which starts Friday.  The first was from DeadRooster (great name, great humor blog, even better review), and the second comes from Odyssey Reviews.  But "new accolades" doesn't just refer to another good review -- it actually refers to new accoldaes, as in a new award.  Inspired by Cluck, awarded by Odyssey, is the son-to-be-coveted "Award of 'indie' Excellence".  

From DeadRooster.com:

"Cluck is extremely well-written and is story-telling at its best. Author Eric D. Knapp shows his skills by successfully blending the difficult combination of humor and horror ..."

I'm pretty sure that independently published books aren't considered for Nobel Prizes. They're not considered for many prizes.  They're not accepted for reviews by most large, mainstream reviewers such as the NY Times or Kirkus.  So how the heck does an Indie get noticed?  I get asked this by a lot of indies, so I've composed a list of some of the more successful & interesting ways I've tried to get attention.

Cluck might be a Murder Most Fowl but it's also a Book Best Written: announcements were sent out last night by Independent Publisher and Cluck was on the list!  This is a big award for independent authors: IP is a respected organization, and over 3,000 books were entered in this year's competition. And Cluck, your fav zombie chicken book, won!  Can I get a "Hell Yeah!" 

Kimberly Swan of DarqueReviews wrote a nice review of Cluck: Murder Most Fowl.  A brief excerpt:

"Mr. Knapp entertains readers with a well-written and detailed world that has many twists, turns and horrors to experience along the way. While zombie chickens may not be at the top of your list of interests, the bizarre nature of this story will keep readers turning the pages to see where it will lead. It's an unusual tale that falls more on the light side of horror than anything else, and it's one that anyone who reads it won't soon forget."

"Mr. Knapp entertains readers with a well-written and detailed world that ... will keep readers turning the pages to see where it will lead. It's an unusual tale ... one that anyone who reads it won't soon forget."

" ... well-written ... will keep readers turning the pages ... it's one that anyone who reads it won't soon forget."

My recent post about Hot Women Thinking Men Who Read Zombie Chicken Books Are Hot created a flood of traffic to this blog - which isn't surprising, really, because the photo (legally purchased stock art, by the way) is pretty darn fantastic.   

I'm following some advice from another dead chicken related blog, and posting a true story about the sexier side of zombie chicken lit.  This is a true story, as far as you know.    It has nothing to do with ways to increase traffic to my blog.  Names have been changed to protect the innocent. A friend, we'll name him "Lucky," was working a book fair in PA, when he was approached at the booth by a hot brunette. She said she loved men who read, and was a fan of horror books. She looked "don't introduce me to your mother" hot, and so some serious flirtation ensured, resulting in my friend handing this strange vamp the key to his hotel room. His mind was full of conflicting thoughts. Was he going to get laid? Was he going to be robbed? The thought of this mysterious woman running off with all of his possessions made him anxious, but not as much as the promise of wild kinky sex. He called a co-worker to cover the booth, and then hurried up to his hotel room for what he hoped would be an afternoon of wild love making. When he got to his room, he snapped the above picture with his phone before she woke up.  Notice that she's holding a copy of Cluck, and not some other book with Cluck's cover photo-shopped over it.  Needless to say, he sent me the picture -- but not until later, because she woke up and gave him a wild session of mid-day zombie-chicken sex play. She read my book aloud while exploring every sexual position imaginable (at least, all of them that left one hand free to hold "Cluck"). She had him clucking and scratching, and pretending to be covered with rotten white-meat -- everything that you would expect from a nasty kinky nymphomaniac -- until they finally climaxed with a duet of "cock-a-doodle-do!" that left Lucky a new man (and a vegetarian).

Okay, I'm not that active in social sites and I use a picture of my face inside an egg.  But I've made up for that with the above photo.  

Ten beautiful words: "Women Think Men Who Read Zombie Chicken Books are Hot"

Long posts like this one, full of keywords like hot, babe, sex, woman, foreplay, and zombie rooster fetishism.

With a post like this, I'm probably encouraging flames more-so than comments, but I encourage you regardless. 

I put links to DeadRooster, as well as to Self Publishing Marketing Help, because this is ultimately about promoting my blog, which is ultimately about marketing my book. Which yes, I did alter in order to add my book cover. 

Rule #7: Don't be a Shit

Cluck: Murder Most Fowl was selected as a semi-finalist in the Independent Publisher Book Awards!  Yippee!  The IPPY's are a respected group, and this means a lot.  It's also gratifying in that this is the second such semi-accolade (Cluck was also selected as a finalist for the Foreword BOTY award).

The semantics of success have been bothering me lately, so I'll rant about it for a while.  This thought has occurred to every self-published writer out there, including yours truly: "Can I make money through self-publishing?"  It's asked as a polite euphemism for "can I be successful if I self-publish, or am I just another schmuck?"  I get asked this question (in the politely version) almost every day.  

Here's my answer: 

"Can I make money?"  is not the same question as "Can I be successful.?"  Unless you are amazingly materialistic, there are other ways than income to justify your life.  The sad truth, when limited to economic terms, is that no first-time writer, wether self-published or not, is going to make much money.  I think it's funny that the initial reaction to self-published author's (especially from traditionalists in the book industry), is that you're wasting some grand opportunity at a life of red velvet smoking-room comfort by throwing your manuscript to the vanity whores.  The truth is that there are several good reasons why self-publishing might be good for you.  Another tidbit of truth is that you can make a quality self-published book: using "Cluck" as an example, I'll make the bold statement that it is high-quality, despite its self-published nature; an opinion that has been corroborated by many great reviews and two award nominations.  At the risk of derailing this article into a "self publishing is as good as the next thing" rant, I'll steer back to the topic of money and its buck-toothed cousin, success.

If you'd like to enter this pre-armed, there are excellent articles on the finances of writing, regardless of which avenue that you've chosen (the link is down below ... see how I hook you into reading more with the promise of some delicious info? that kind of thinking will increase your sales by approximately 0.04% ... but hey every penny counts).  Using Cluck as an example, the answer to the question "will it make money is?" is "not yet, probably never."  Cluck is fairly new, after all, and while it has been selected as a finalist in some competitions, it hasn't actually won them (yet!) ... What I'll do instead is comment on how hard it is to sell books, and how much money that a mediocre amazon sales rank translates to.  

 [Aside: Amazon sales ranks don't mean much, but they mean more to self published others than others, because it's much easier to sell self-published books online (and thus the sales rank is more indicative of overall book sales).  There's a lot to be said about sales rank, and it's said better here and here than I can say it.]

Anyway, we'll use Cluck as an example and make some assumptions: 

• You wrote a good book
• You have a meager marketing budget (and I mean less than $1000, where most 'publicized' books have budgets in the tens-of-thousands)
• You work hard and get some good reviews anyway
• You work to be as creative as possible in getting the word out about your book
• You issue a press release
• You are selected as a finalist in a book contest
• You issue a press release about said accolade
• You are selected as a finalist in another book award

... well, in that scenario, I can honestly say that you can expect to sell about a hundred copies of your book over six months.  Maybe a bit more.  We'll see what happens if/when I actually win the awards, versus simply being selected as a finalist.

Why so low?  The truth of the matter is that unless you get the big-budget promotions from a publisher, with cardboard end-caps at brick-and-mortar bookstores and all that jazz, you will not become an overnight success just because you wrote a good book (etc, ad nauseam, as per the above list). However - when compared to a typical advance for a first-time author, paid over time, you have a shot at making  some money - even as much or almost as much as a 'traditionally published' book.  The myth is that this amount is anything that you'll be able to live off of.  The adage thus goes: to be a successful writer, marry someone who can support you.  It gets easier as you become a known element.  I've been told that after three "successful" books, you can expect to make some decent money.  Wait -- there's that pesky "success" word again.  How can you have three successful books that haven't made money?

Because success as a writer does not equate to, nor is it measured by, money.  If I wanted to make money as a writer, and that was the only criteria, I would spend more time writing technical documents for the high tech industries, which pay well.  I wouldn't write genre fiction, and I certainly wouldn't write it about zombie chickens.  But that was my goal: to write a well written, well produced piece of off-the-wall genre fiction; to share it with the world; to make at least one other person besides myself smile and say "zombie chickens? Excellent."

The reviews speak for themselves, the awards (or the semi-almost-finalist-ism of the awards) speak a lot, also.  People I care about, as well as a growing fan base, have enjoyed Cluck.  So I say: yes Cluck is a success.  I mean, I have fans.  Am I making money? Nope, not really.  But it's a start, and it's a gratifying one.

As a self-published author, you are the writer, publisher, publicist, press agent, marketing guru, webmaster, etc.  You can be highly skilled at one or two or even three of these things and still have trouble selling a self-published book in quantities that will make you feel glorious.  Brick-and-mortar bookstores won't carry them, (which also means you wont get stocking orders that then get returned, which is a good thing).  Many reviewers wont touch them, although with a good premise and a good manuscript, you'll get takers.  You'll hear words like "vanity", which will make you feel bad about yourself (which to me is the proof that self-publishers aren't vain: if we we're, we'd seek avenues that are viewed more positively, so that we could feel good about ourselves).  But that doesn't mean you're not a 'success'.  You're simply not a success in materialistic terms.   The two are not mutually exclusive.

Another Cluck Trailer on YouTube?  You bet!  For those who aren't in the know, "Cluck: Murder Most Fowl" is latest cult fav about zombie chickens and French exorcists.  It's a ForeWord Book of the Year finalist and has more video trailers than any other book I'm aware of."Definitely amusing and most bizarre this is an out of the ordinary first in the series which will have you clucking for more" 

Cluck will be signed,
and it will be read, 
but the zombie Rooster 
will still be dead.