I’m in Nebraska

I am currently in Nebraska, and appearing at several venues.  This last weekend I appeared at The Bookworm in Omaha, at the R Bar in Homer, where Two Gun worked, and in Sioux City, where Al had a branch of his operations and where Two Gun also operated.  This weekend I’ll be at A Novel Idea on Saturday, and the Walt Branch Library on Sunday.  I’ll also stick around one more week because the following Sunday is Mother’s Day, and I should hang out with her, and probably spend time with friends.

I was going to stay a whole month because I was going to fly into San Francisco to do a tour there.  However, though several bookstores told me they were interested in talking to me about appearing at their stores, not one ever got back to me about actually doing it.  Also, no news sources showed any interest, so it was quickly turning into a wasted trip.  At the same time, things have been heating up back in Burbank where I need to get a lot done, including Command Combat Battle Reports, which is a whole different story.

Building My Base in Nebraska

This week I'll be going to Nebraska for a few weeks.  As it turns out, it's sort of bad timing for me as a lot is going to be happening here in LA, but it's important.  I've seen the results over the past few years of building a base from which to grow, and I need to do that here with Two Gun Hart.

I was lucky enough to grow up in a town that is the perfect size for this sort of platform building.  Large cities, especially ones like Los Angeles and New York, tend to overlook the little guy, especially if he's not connected to a celebrity.  So even though you have massive audiences there, it's almost impossible to get press coverage, or a speaking engagement at a bookstore or library.  Even a city like San Francisco, which claims to pride itself on independence, books, and local artists, don't tend to support any of them unless the person in question is somehow famous or has already built a platform elsewhere.  Alternatively, though a small town where everyone knows you will support your efforts, there are few people to see your work, and you wind up with only a handful of people getting to know your work.

In Lincoln, though, I've gotten a lot of support from many bookstores and radio hosts.  Some have ignored me, but most have given my work a shot, especially when it's relevant to their listenership and customers.  There are enough people to get the word out to that they'll spread the word, and it will be effective.  I've seen my work get discussed on social media, where it starts in Nebraska, and spreads out to other areas of the country.

My hope with this is that I'll be able to do what I haven't been able to accomplish before, to use that initial buzz as a launching platform to start the conversation in other areas of the country where I can then get speaking engagements that turn into sales.  We will see.

Going to Los Angeles Times Festival of Books

I will be at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books tomorrow at USC.  I’ll be selling and signing copies of Two Gun Hart and The Great Heist.  I’ll also have a couple copies of Pro Bono since that book is, in many ways, the third book in that symbolic trilogy.

My primary goal at most festivals is to give out as many flyers as possible so they can see who I am and what my work is like.  But this time I’m actually hoping to sell a number of books because of the subject matter.  I have always believed, and still believe, that the simple fact that Al Capone had a long-lost brother who was a Prohibition officer is enough to turn heads and attract people enough to purchase it.  To lure people in, I have made 8 ½ X 11 sheets of the cover, and of the various articles with the headlines in large bold letters declaring the fact of the relation, and Two Gun’s profession.  Just in case this is not enough to get people to buy, I’ve also printed numerous copies of the prologue of the book, which is the introduction Harry always gives when he talks about his father.

Below is the link to the festival, and a sheet I’m going to post along with the headlines and articles.

http://events.latimes.com/festivalofbooks/

Coming to Nebraska

I'll be coming to Nebraska for several events at the end of this month and the beginning of next month. I'll be signing copies of Two Gun Hart and talking about the story. Harry Hart, son of "Two Gun" Hart, will be with me at the events in Homer and Sioux City, as well as the Walt Branch Library. Here are the dates:

Saturday, April 25, 1-4 pm: The Bookworm in Omaha
Sunday, April 26, 11 am - 1 pm: The R Bar in Homer
Sunday, April 26, 2-4 pm: Sioux City Museum in Sioux City
Saturday, May 2, 10-11 am: Chapters Books in Seward
Saturday, May 2, 1:30-3 pm: A Novel Idea in Lincoln
Sunday, May 3, 2-4 pm pm: Walt Branch Library in Lincoln

Using Conventions to Sell Books

I went to Wondercon last weekend, and will be going to the LA Times Festival of Books this weekend.  I have a space at the Greater Los Angeles Writers Society booth where I sell books alongside two or three other authors.  Conventions are an important tool for the independent author/publisher, but it’s an often misunderstood one.  I certainly had difficulty with it for a while.

I was very discouraged at the first few conventions I went to.  I had almost no sales at any of them.  I gave away some flyers and bookmarks, but the sales themselves didn’t come anywhere close to the amount I spent just to get there, let alone pay for parking, the booth space, the copies of the books, etc.  I was, quite frankly, angry, and felt ripped off.  I was especially disgusted when I heard the people who sold the most number of books only sold about eight or ten.  When you consider the fact that you’re only making about $5 profit per sale, not even taking tax into account, you can see that you’re not even going to make back the $75 you spent to get the table space, let alone everything else.

But then I stopped and considered my gains.  I had given out tons of information about my books, and I saw the number of visitors to my websites grow.  People were willing to give my free stuff a chance after the convention was done.  I then did a little self-experiment.  I walked around the convention considering what books I would buy.  I found myself falling into the same pattern as everyone else.  I was willing to consider buying the big flashy things, or the books with brands with which I was already familiar, such as Dune.  Independent books made me nervous.  I had enough money to buy just one or two books, and I was afraid to take a chance with new products.

I realized what hypocrite I was being, but then came to accept that everyone is going to feel this way.  There was a time when even Dune was new, and people slowly took a chance on that.  But likely they saw a bit about it somewhere for free.  Most people don’t want to spend money on something with which they’re unfamiliar.  They need samples.  That’s perfectly reasonable.

And so I determined that the conventions have two uses.  First, for the brands that are already familiar to people to sell to them and give them a chance to see the authors and others involved in the projects they love.  Two, to introduce new products to the public for free so they’ll start getting into it.

This makes promoting Relic Worlds relatively easy because it’s a series, but other books, which are more difficult, rather hard.

I’m going to go into more detail about how I’m promoting Relic Worlds on my Relic Worlds blog as there is a LOT to tell about.  But here I’ll basically say I’m branching out into every part of the convention I can, including the game section, cosplay, flyers, a treasure hunt, even the panels.  As for the more tricky one-offs, here’s what I’m doing.

First, at the booth I have something relevant to the book I’m selling.  This year it will be Two Gun Hart and The Great Heist since they’re related to each other.  There were a lot of newspaper articles about these two stories, so I’ll have blown-up versions of them at the booth along with some photographs to attract people’s attention.  Also, to attract attention, I have one sheet that says “Al Capone’s brother was Prohibition Agent.”  I’m hoping that alone brings people over.

I will be giving away bookmarks with Two Gun on one side and a list of all my books on the other side along with the Bandwagon website.  I’ll also have flyers to give out which tells about Two Gun on one side, and The Great Heist on the other.  Each of these will have QR codes on them that lead the reader directly to their pages on the Bandwagon site.  I debated with myself on this one, considering whether to have the QR code go to Amazon, or to the site.  I finally chose the site because all the options of buying the book are there, along with more information than I can tell at the booth.

Even though my assumption is that these are what people will really be picking up, I’ll still have copies of all the books there to sell.  I may also have a sheet with the prologue written as well.  It’s always good to be able to give away a chapter to people.  This can either be done by printing it out, or by giving away a QR code which takes the person to a website with the chapter.  The print-outs are better, but can get very expensive.

I’ll try to report on how it goes, but I’ve not been very good at keeping promises on this blog.

Relic Worlds at Wondercon

Since Two Gun Hart released only two weeks ago, I wanted to focus only on promoting it for the next couple months.  However, Wondercon is taking place this weekend, and it is the best place to promote science fiction and adventure.  As such, I have been preparing for it, and I will be there promoting Relic Worlds all three days.

I'll of course have all the Relic Worlds materials there, including books, samples, descriptions, etc.  I'll be host the miniature game of it on Saturday evening.  But the primary promotion involves a giant treasure hunt that covers the entire convention.  The flyers below are being given out at the front and on social media.  People who choose to do it need to photograph themselves at the proper locations, then post the photos on Facebook and Twitter with the hashtag: relicworldstreasurehunt.  If this works, it will bring attention to the series, and cause a lot of people to put Relic Worlds onto their own social media streams.

To prepare for this, I've had to get two short stories finished and posted on the Relic Worlds page.  The first was the pirate story which had been started but never finished.  I couldn't leave it hanging, so I needed to write the rest of it.  Unfortunately, this story turned out to be longer than I had intended.  Then, I couldn't have the latest story be the pirate story; then new readers would think that's the primary storyline.  So I had to write a Lancaster James story to have at the top of the main website.  Since a lot of new people will be coming in after this, I wanted this story to be a classic Relic Worlds story with a basic plot.  He travels through the jungle, finds a tomb, gets through traps, has to get away from monsters, then run away from local tribesmen, all while getting help from his trusty assistant Little Jack.

I've finished the stories, but need to get back to it to do the touch-ups and insert links, so I better get to it.