Hammer Time

Posted on May 17, 2013 by Mike

A day of machine guns and helicopters in a huge gravel pit during production of the TV show La Femme Nikita taught me a lot about people. I recalled that horrible, exciting day while I was running the Toronto Marathon this year.

A woman stood at the side of the course near the thirty kilometre mark, a lonely spectator in the wasteland that is the Western Beaches heading for the Humber River, a beautiful but empty stretch. Don’t get me wrong. I love running the Toronto Marathon, but when it comes to cheering crowds, it can’t compare to Boston.

This woman obviously knew the race, for she held up a sign to encourage runners that said, “It’s Hammer Time!” You don’t have to be a runner to decode that message: you’re 30 klicks in but you’ve got 12.2 klicks to go. This is the crushing part, the hammer time, when your legs move like they’re no longer under your command, because if they were they’d listen to your brain screaming at them to stop. Instead, they pound along the pavement as if they are the legs of a robot, a cyborg, willing to push on until they shred to pieces, the muscles cramping and tearing, the knees disintegrating.

A lot of crazy thoughts roll through your brain at this point–when you can think at all–and it occurred to me that this is where I am in my newest novel: hammer time.

Stuff goes wrong for people in my novels. Very. Grimly. Wrong. It’s not that I’m callous, it’s that people are most interesting when they’re stressed, when the sheen of civility slips off and you can see the real person underneath. Think about the craziest moment in your career and what you learned about your co-workers that day. I’ve worked under horrible conditions in both the construction industry and the film industry, challenged by cruel weather, impossible deadlines and crazed employers on the brink of nervous break downs themselves.

Like that day on Nikita with helicopters and machine guns in a gravel pit, the regular camera assistants away and my crew composed of dailies and newbies. It was a surprise to me who I could count on and who let me down. To this day I have relatively normal hearing thanks to a trainee who warned me that I’d need ear and eye protection for the next shot, just seconds before they rolled sound. The assistant director (AD) had neglected to inform me that the lead actor was going to open up with a full auto burst from an Ak-47 less than three feet from my head, the muzzle pointed just over the camera. Believe me, blanks are very loud. It wasn’t that the AD wasn’t good at his job, it was just that the day was so crazy, the pace so frantic, the helicopter blowing up the dust, people running, extras with guns everywhere. It was difficult to think. And for us camera grunts, there were hills of gravel to climb with tons of gear, and an extra camera that arrived without a crew, so we were stretched to the breaking point, spread out over half a kilometre. After that day, I knew who I could call for a tough shoot and who I would pass over when going through the union list.

History is rarely a description of the years during which nothing bad happens, but mostly focuses on pivotal events that are never fun, thus the historians curse, “May you live in interesting times.”

I’ve known all along what’s going to happen in the third instalment of the 1000 Souls series because I wrote the fourth book first, but I’ve had trouble facing this moment, putting down on paper what I know must occur. So here is my confession, I haven’t written a damn thing for a month and a half because I can’t face the unfolding disaster. Don’t worry, the book is not a total train wreck, but people will be stressed, and some will shine and others…well, you won’t be calling them the next time you’re expecting a challenging day.

Novel writing and marathon running have a lot in common. Both seem like a good idea about six months before the deadline. Training will help, I think, and of course it does, but no matter how much I run through the winter, the marathon is a gruelling test of endurance. Eventually, I have to push through hammer time.

Something snapped during that last 12.2 kilometres this year. I lived my novel, saw the key moments, shared my characters’s pain and fear and anger. Together we fought through all the wreckage, hopelessness and despair to the good stuff at the end. By the time I stood with that ridiculously big medal around my neck after the finish line, I knew I was ready to complete the story.

I’ll be writing very quickly now. It’s hammer time.

After Hammer Time

A Sneak Peak

Posted on February 21, 2013 by Mike

Prologue: Margaret

Just when she thought she and mom were going home, the Redemption Brigade came for them. Margaret didn’t understand who they were at the time because she was only seven, and up until that day she had always assumed that all humans were friends, could never hurt one another or shoot one another. Only the rippers were evil. Only the night needed to be feared.

Margaret enjoyed their adventure to Chicago until that day, seeing the huge buildings and playing with the kids of the Brat Pack at St. Mike’s. They were the orphans of Chicago, and for a few days while her mother was off killing rippers, Margaret stayed with them and their sort-of mom, Helen, a really old lady who smiled a lot, and their sort-of dad, Emile, a smelly fat guy who laughed a lot and showed them how to shoot. He even let her take a turn with a small handgun. She missed the target, a board with a bunch of circles painted on it leaning up against an empty old house, but he gave her two more tries, patiently instructing her on how to hold the gun until she hit the second circle.

The church was amazing. She’d never seen carving and painting like that. Some guy in a black robe came and told the children all about God, but Margaret had already been warned by her mother and Uncle Jeff not to mention the 1000 Souls, that these Chicago people weren’t believers yet and were afraid of Ericsians. Margaret also found it weird that while they were near anyone from Chicago, she was supposed to pretend that Kayla was her mom. After some big battle her mom won, they moved away from St. Mike’s and into a huge building, the Merch Mart it was called, but she wasn’t allowed to go exploring through the empty stores or offices, and there were no other kids there, so it was really boring. All she could do was look out the windows at the big city that spread all around them, miles and miles of empty buildings. One night flares popped high and there was a lot of shooting around the bridges over the river, but she only watched it for a few minutes before Uncle Jeff found her by the window and took her to the safe ammunition room on the north side of the Mart to sit with a couple of others and stuff bullets into magazines. She was very good at it, one of the fastest.

While all this was exciting, she was homesick for the familiar crowds of St. John’s Keep and the open fields and forests of Canada. Everyone in Chicago seemed very tense up until the party day, the kissing day. That was the best and worst day of her young life.

She was old enough to know that they’d won some big battle with the rippers, that they were all dead. She thought that meant every ripper in the world was dead, that the war was over for good. People danced and hugged and kissed in the morning light in front of the church. She hugged and kissed each one of her new friends in the Brat Pack, and she was especially pleased when Collin, the big boy, a full thirteen-years-old and a messenger to her mom, gave her a kiss on the forehead and an awkward hug. She treasured that memory for years. She loved him.

But her mom was all worried and angry about something. They rushed from the party at St. Mike’s back to their camp in the Merch Mart and started packing crazy fast.

“We’re going to go on a big plane,” said her mom. “We’ll be back home the day after tomorrow.”

But the Redemption Brigade arrived in their trucks with their guns and surrounded the building, wouldn’t let them out, told them to surrender.

Margaret had heard a lot of gunfire in her young life, but never in daylight, and never a battle between humans. There was nowhere for her to hide like in St. John’s, where they always sent them into the mine if things got really scary. Even the ammunition room wasn’t safe because windows facing north were hit with bullets too. They could only tuck her into a corner of a corridor behind some filing cabinets, where she filled magazines as fast as her little hands could jam in the bullets. People rushed out of the haze of gun smoke and grabbed full clips from her in panic, dropping off their empties. Some people were dragged past her back from the barricade with bullet wounds, some dead. Helen, the nice old lady who took care of the Brat Pack, stayed with her until dark. Her mom joined them for a moment, blood running down her cheek from a cut, her face a thunder that warned Margaret not to dare to argue.

“Helen’s going to take you to the big plane. I’ll be right behind, okay, baby? Just remember mommy loves you very, very much. Be quiet with Helen though, okay? No crying. These evil ass…the Redemption Brigade, the bad people, mustn’t know that we’re sneaking away, okay? And some are on the bridge at the river. You’ll have to swim, but nice and quiet, okay? Quiet as a mouse.” Her mother gave her one last desperate hug and smeared her blood on Margaret’s cheek when she kissed her.

Helen carried her through the wreckage of a building in the dark while all the gunfire only got worse behind them in the Merch Mart. They crossed a narrow foot bridge and had to slide down some piles of broken building to the ground because the stairs were gone. She got a lot scraps and a nasty cut, but she kept silent as her mother asked, telling herself to cry on the inside. When Helen reached the river not far from the bridge, she stopped and waited. Margaret assumed they were waiting for her mother to catch up.

Kayla and her new boyfriend joined them instead, and they all slipped quietly into the cold water together, but something went wrong. Margaret’s head went under and she couldn’t breath. Suddenly Helen pushed her into Kayla’s boyfriend’s arms. He carried her out of the river, but Helen just disappeared in the dark water. It was too bad. Margaret liked her.

The plane was huge! She’d never seen anything so big. Kayla called it a Herc. It wasn’t really comfortable inside though because there were only benches to sit on, but there was a lot of space for running around. Kayla told her it wasn’t really a passenger plane, that it was for stuff.

They made her sit while the plane took off, but once it was in the air Margaret went looking for her mother. She walked up and down the benches, checking each face carefully a second time as if she might have missed her by accident. Uncle Jeff wasn’t on board either. She even went up to the cockpit, but only Milan, the man who always brought candies for the kids when he flew into St. John’s, was driving the plane. He turned from all the controls and smiled at her, but it was a sad smile.

Margaret walked very slowly passed everyone back to Kayla, slowly because she didn’t want to believe that her mother wasn’t on the plane. She stood in front of Kayla, who had tears on her cheeks. Kayla wiped them quickly when she realized Margaret was standing in front of her.

Margaret didn’t ask. She didn’t have to. She just stood in front of Kayla and waited to hear the worst.

Kayla shook her head. “I’m sorry, honey. I’m so, so sorry. Your mommy’s gone. She was killed by the bad guys.” She pulled Margaret into her lap.

They wept together. Even Kayla’s boyfriend, Tevy, wept and patted Margaret’s shoulder many times, promising that they would take care of her forever. Kayla tried to clean the blood from Margaret’s cheek, but that was her mother’s blood. Margaret never let anyone clean that blood, but it wore off anyway, severing her last connection to her mother. Margaret finally let herself fall asleep, hoping that it would all be a bad dream, that her mother would wake her from her bed in their room at St. John’s.

She woke when the plane landed and wept some more, but they had to hurry onto a bus and headed out even before sun up. Kayla told her to go back to sleep, but before she drifted off a little fire took hold in her soul, an anger, a rage. It grew while she slept.

She woke in the afternoon, the sun on her side of the bus making her hot. She remembered a question that she desperately wanted answered, a question the angry Margaret wanted answered.

“Who killed mommy?”

“The Redemption Brigade,” said Kayla.

“Bobs,” said her boyfriend at the same time.

Margaret whispered those names to herself again and again during the long drive home. “Bobs and the Redemption Brigade.” She stared out at the forests sweeping past, her head pressed against the bus window so that she could see better in the bright sunlight. “Bobs and the Redemption Brigade.”

She vowed that when she grew up, she would kill them all. For mommy.

Why I Decided to Write “New Adult”

Posted on January 18, 2013 by Mike

No, New Adult is not fresh porn. It’s fiction aimed at a very specific age group, 18-25 years old, people who are too old for Young Adult but are still reading for fun and adventure. Many of this age group are fighting their way through university, establishing careers and courting mates. It’s that fantastic time when your whole life is ahead of you and anything is possible.

Many of my friends were surprised when I announced that I intended to publish N.A. vampire military novels instead of the my epic novel set in Afghanistan during the war with the occupying Soviet Red Army. After all, I researched it for a decade, starting with a ridiculously hazardous trip in 1988 to witness the end of that war, back when I was still a new adult myself, and a crazy one at that. I think my friends were concerned that I was abandoning a literary writing career for something less serious, less important. My Afghanistan novel might never have been nominated for the Booker prize, indeed it probably would have been dismissed with a sniff as too violent, but somewhere along the way it might have been considered. My friends clearly thought I was abandoning all chance at being an important literary voice. I agree.

But a couple of things changed my focus. First, some unspeakable people flew a couple of jets into the World Trade Center, and Afghanistan, my private research project, my area of knowledge, became top news, and not in a good way. Before I knew it, anchormen and women who had never heard of Afghanistan were talking about Kabul and Herat as if they had always been able to pick them out on a map and hadn’t just been desperately reading Wikipedia.

I still intend to publish my epic, my life’s work, but it simply has to go away for while. That’s life.

The Second fact that changed my mind came from my membership in the Crime Writers of Canada. They’re a great bunch of writers, but many of them are very suspicious of e-Books. In fact the hostility to Amazon and e-Books in general is at times stunning. I’m happy to say that this is not a uniform view. Some of the more adventurous ones did leap into e-Pubbing and have been rather successful, but it was my first indication that the baby boom generation ahead of me were going to be surprisingly conservative when it came to e-readers.

More importantly, I discovered that readers over fifty years-old don’t like change. I was at the CWC desk at Toronto’s Word on the Street in 2010. One woman, not old, maybe sixty, came over to look at the Kindle and the Sony eReader I had on display. I answered her questions about them, and I thought we were having a nice conversation, when she suddenly announced, “But I’d never buy one.” The distain implied that I was suggesting something equivalent to buying a handgun or an erotic novel like 50 Shades of Grey.

Today, vindication came from a panel at Digital Book World that included Jane Dystel . She’s one of those agents I’ve been following since the 90s because I wanted her to represent my epic when it was completed. I have a great deal of respect for her opinion. She’s also one of the early adopters of eBooks and ePublishing. She’s definitely not one of the Luddites. So what caught my attention? The consensus of the panel is that the genres that are the most successful in indie-pubbing, which today means e-Pubbing, are romance, young adult, and new adult–books the next generation read, people who find the scent of plastic just as pleasing as binding glue and mould.

So for indie e-pubbing, I’m in the right genre. I’m well into my fourth book, and whether I’m an important literary voice doesn’t matter, because I’m really enjoying my work. Getting up in the morning is very easy.

The Apocalypse Will Happen in 2013

Posted on December 14, 2012 by Mike

Forget the Mayan Apocalypse because that is so last week, or will be by the New Year. If planet Nibiru was on the way into our inner solar system, it would be the brightest star in the sky right now. As for planet killing solar flares, the sun is heading for the weakest solar maximum in a century.

But the signs are there that 2013 will be awful.

Pundits earlier in the year speculated that car manufacturers might give 2013 a miss altogether, letting the 2012 model year run late and launching the 2014 models early. It looks like that isn’t the case, but the fact that expert salespeople worried about 2013 is what should have you worried. Are car buyers that superstitious?

I took a first year psychology course for fun during my third year, and the professor explained the phenomenon this way:

A Witch-doctor/shaman/high priest–let’s call him Kreep–lives in superstitious society in a small village. Kreep is angry with his neighbor, Phred, because he’s a good hunter but doesn’t share enough meat with the shaman.

Kreep decides to make an example by very publicly putting a curse on Phred, telling him he will be struck dead before the full moon. Phred panics and begs others for help, but they shun Phred, frightened that the curse will transfer to them. Even his wife begs Phred to leave their home for the children’s sake.

Phred, now terrified, goes to live in a cave up the mountain, but he’s so afraid of the curse that he won’t leave it, hoping to hide from the evil fate foretold by Kreep. Phred becomes dangerously dehydrated because he doesn’t even venture down to the river for a drink. He assumes his symptoms are related to the curse, and that some evil demon is trying lure him out with thirst and to drive him to his death at the river. By the time Phred decides he needs water no matter what awaits, he is delirious. He wanders a confused path until the dehydration sends him into a coma. The villagers find him dead only a short walk from the river. There are no wounds. Now everyone gives Kreep generous portions of their hard won meat for fear that this powerful man will curse them too.

That, explained our prof, is a self-fulling prophesy. If Phred wasn’t superstitious, if he had ignored Kreep, he would’ve been just fine.

Which brings me back to 2013 and the apocalypse. A lot of people are superstitious about the number 13. Just check out how many apartment buildings and office towers don’t have a 13th floor. If people expect the worst of 2013, like Phred, they will make it happen–whether it’s an unexpected and unexplainable sell off on the stock market, or a natural disaster. How many would have blamed 2013 as an unlucky year if Hurricane Sandy had come ashore a year later than it did? Many pundits would say, “See, a bad year. A truly apocalyptic storm.”

The news media, of course, will aid and abet the panic. Any really bad thing that happens in 2013 will be inflated to apocalyptic proportions by earnest anchorpeople eager for ratings. Bad news sells.

So I’m not worried about the Mayan Apocalypse. In fact, that image above is the plan for a cake I’m making on December 21st to celebrate the solstice. I’m more concerned about the self-fulling prophesies of 2013.

My only advice is don’t panic if things start to go wrong next year, and remember that even the pope thinks the calendar is off. We may have already lived through 2013, or it may not happen for a few years, and if we don’t know when it goes by, it won’t be a problem.

So get a good grip on something. I believe 2013 is going to be a bumpy ride, but while at times it will seem like the apocalypse, it won’t be. Somehow we’ll make it through to 2014, and then we’ll be a full century past World War One. Now that was disaster that truly was apocalyptic.

Repeat After Me: We’re All Different. I’m not.

Posted on November 28, 2012 by Mike

Life of Brian

I was ahead of the curve and I blew it. Six months before Amanda Hocking and John Locke stunned the publishing world by selling millions of self-pubbed eBooks, I predicted this would happen. In fact, I’d hoped it would happen to me. I knew that there would be a small window when not too many authors would choose the less traditional route of indie-publishing. They would still be busy adding their manuscripts to the slush pile. I wanted to be one of the first through the indie-publishing gate. All those avid readers with their new Kindles would turn to my economically priced eBook and give it a try instead of paying ten bucks for a traditionally published book.

But six months is a long time in the heady world of e-publishing. During that time I indie-pubbed a few of my previously published short stories and fought to edit my way through my novel set in Afghanistan. But when the New York Times started writing articles about Hocking and Locke, I knew I was far too late to be ahead of the curve. Now I’m riding out the tsunami.

Within a few months millions of indie-pubbed authors joined the rush, all out there flogging their novels almost overnight. But what fascinates me is how unoriginal we are with our marketing. I’m just as guilty as everyone else.

First we cobble together a website. Then we start a blog. Thanks for reading, by the way. Next are the Facebook and Twitter accounts. We join tweet groups and we follow each other. I’d say about 80% of my Twitter followers are writers, 5% are self-proclaimed “social marketing experts,” and the rest are spam bots. Some authors go the extra mile and make book trailers, although these usually consist of zooming and panning shots of stock images overwritten with text and playing the ubiquitous canned music. Dull.

I don’t even read my regular twitter feed any more because it’s so jammed with pleas to buy this author or that author’s novel. The rest of the feed consist of links to blog posts like this one. Yup. Mea Cupla.

I do have a list from Twitter for authors I admire. I also have a list for runners, and another for friends so that I can still use Twitter to keep up on neighborhood gossip. I don’t flog my novels on Twitter anymore out of respect for my friends and the fact that all those authors who follow me aren’t interested in buying books, they’re just interested in selling. One author even sent me a direct message asking me to “like” her Facebook page and promising to “like” mine in return. I did and sent her a tweet to let her know, but she didn’t “like” back. Hopefully it was an oversight, but I’m suspicious it was just self-centered. Anything that didn’t immediately forward her career wasn’t worth the bother.

So I feel like I’m at Brian’s sermon in Monty Python’s Life of Brian. He’s trying to get the crowd to go away and says, “Listen, you’re all individuals.” Like robots everyone replies, “We’re all individuals.” He continues, “You’re all different.” Crowd replies, “We’re all different.” Then one man puts up his hand and says, “I’m not.” He proves he is different by denying it. Brilliant comedy. Thanks to Youtube, you can see for yourself. Here’s the one minute segment.

I want to be that guy who stands out by not doing exactly what everyone else is doing. It won’t be easy. It won’t necessarily sell novels, but I have a plan. I can’t tell you what it is just yet, because it’s not ready to go, and I don’t want to find out that in the time it took me to launch, a hundred-thousand other authors are doing it too.

So for now I’m trying to stand out by doing not much of anything. I’m not tweeting pleas to buy my books, because it rarely resulted in sales and just irritated my friends. I will keep writing my blog, because I’m a compulsive writer, and of course I’ll keep writing the rest of the 1000 Souls series. That’s what my plan really needs: product. No point in being successful if all I have to offer is three of novels and an anthology of previously published short stories.

So I’m going to try to be different. It won’t be easy because the lure of the well-trodden path is tempting, but it’ll be interesting for me, at least. I’ll keep you posted.

Too British to Brag?

Posted on November 15, 2012 by Mike

SFContario Three: A Cosy Con

I’m actually not British but rather a total colonial mutt. However, my roots on my mother’s side do go back that way, so perhaps that’s why I’m not screaming at the top of my lungs: “I’m the SFContario 3 Idol!” Okay, there, I said it.

I have a new respect for those daring people who perform for American Idol, willing to stand there and accept the verdict of caustic judges while attempting to look like they aren’t being humiliated for our entertainment. I at least had the benefit of anonymity, and even then I’ve never been so terrified in my life, and between working on high-steel bridges as a teenager and visiting war torn countries…hey, maybe I can brag, just not about my writing!

The judges for our competition sat at the front of an overcrowded and hot room, while a con organizer, in this case Debra Yeung, read the entries, each one only the first 250 words of an author’s manuscript. Since no one knew who the authors were, we contestants didn’t have to admit to being the recipients of ridicule as the judges panned one story after another. Debra simply began reading an entry and kept going until three of the five judges gonged the story, usually after a paragraph. The judges would then each explain why they didn’t like the story, what kicked them out, and if there was hope, they’d make a suggestion as to where it could be approved.

I had submitted the opening for Generation Apocalypse, curious to see how it would be received. But when Debra started reading, I became very aware of my heart beat. Amusingly, the judges had earlier warned writers not to use cliches like, “his heart beat faster,” to illustrate how a protagonist felt. But what can I say? I’m a marathoner (hey, this bragging is easy!) and I’m very aware of my heart beat, and this was a slow heavy thump. I swear I could feel it pushing against my rib cage in waves. I waited for that first judge to gong, which usually caused a cascade of gongs from the other judges.

But it didn’t come. The room went silent, and Debra read far past the 250 words allowed. I next expected them to gong because I had submitted too much, nearly 900 words to get to the end of the first prologue. Still Debra continued to read, and the silence in the room deepened. No one shifted, coughed or flipped through their program book. That’s when my hope rose, tempered with disbelief. Did I have them? I had them! Debra reached the end of the prologue and one of the judges said, “go on!” To which Debra replied, “that’s all there is.” The audience burst into spontaneous applause, and I joined in an effort to stay anonymous. Why? I was embarrassed at the praise. It must have been those diluted British genes making themselves known.

But one of the judges, Author Douglas Smith, asked if the writer would be willing to reveal themselves. Now I couldn’t stand there and pretend I wasn’t the guy. After a pregnant pause to gather my nerve, I put up one hand. The audience gave me another round of applause. I was overwhelmed.

But I’m also a lousy marketer. Doug did his best to save me from my humble self. He asked me if this was from a novel. Yes. He asked if it was available for sale, again, embarrassed at the attention, I just said, “yes, as an ebook.” I failed to tell the audience the title, or that it was on Amazon, or anything else that would be helpful if they wanted to buy the book. As soon as the contest was over I simply fled the room and rushed out to the street to call my wife.

I should have been shouting about this all week, but the British genes held me back. Oh well. Maybe I’ll get better at bragging. This blog post is a start. I’m an SFContario3 Idol! Will it make me rich and famous? No. But I cherish the memory of the five minutes of captivated quiet in that room.

Flux and Chaos at World Fantasy Convention

Posted on November 7, 2012 by Mike

World Fantasy in Toronto

World Fantasy Convention in Toronto was sparklingly well organized, and I had a great time, but I was surprised to hear these two words popping up repeatedly: flux and chaos. I first noticed them during the eBooks panel, which was packed.

I attended this panel expecting to hear the usual: eBooks are evil, they’re a fad, we need traditional publishers as “gatekeepers,” a paternalistic and condescending concept. Instead, I heard industry professionals state that eBooks are here to stay, and that the publishing industry is in a state of flux and chaos. One of the panelists expressed the desire to leap ten years into the future so that he could again live in a stable world, although I did get the impression that he would’ve been even happier to jump twenty years into the past.

But what really caught my attention was what Betsy Mitchell, a former Del Rey editor, thought of the eBook revolution. To my utter astonishment she stated that this is a wonderful and exciting time for writers and readers. She expressed delight that cross genre work that would never have been accepted by the rigid guidelines of most publishing houses was now getting out and finding audiences and success thanks to eBooks.

You could have knocked me over with a feather. An industry pro I’ve long respected and admired says she loves the eBook revolution. This is a huge change over two years ago, when the vitriol expressed by most authors and editors over the mere existence of eBooks, let alone the impudence of indie-authors to by-pass the publishing industry and its sanctified gatekeepers, was way over the top when opinions were expressed at all. Indeed, I attended the Ad-Astra eBook panel in 2010 and found that only three of the five panelists and four audience members even bothered to attend. And if that wasn’t an indictment of eBooks, two of the panelists spoke with concern about who the gatekeepers would be in this new electronic format.

The words flux and chaos continued to pop up throughout the weekend, especially at a panel on the future of cover art. Several great illustrators on the panel all expressed concern about their future in a market that is in a state of flux and chaos. A couple of them say they are looking for alternate sources of revenue since the traditional publishers are commissioning less and less cover art. When I asked near the end of the panel if any indie-pubbers had contacted them for cover art, the moderator dismissed me out of hand, stating that a whole new panel would be required to deal with that question. He added that self-pubbers have “no idea how to commission cover art.” Perhaps that was his way of saying I couldn’t afford him. To which I respond: the publishing world is in a state of flux and chaos. You can resist it or profit from it. Educate us. There are more covers out there than ever. There is opportunity.

Friday Funny: Preparing for the Zombie Apocalypse is a Good Idea. No, Really!

Posted on October 19, 2012 by Mike

I have a confession to make. I don’t believe there’s going to be a zombie apocalypse. I do, however, believe in pandemics, floods, hurricanes, huge power blackouts and slow government responses.

A fellow writer once commented on my apocalyptic stories by saying, “It wouldn’t all fall apart so quickly. We have governments that would intervene.” After Katrina hit New Orleans, and the stories of a city in chaos from the flood hit the 24hr news cycle, he apologized. He was amazed that a huge country with an operating federal government couldn’t seem to come to grips with the disaster for weeks. It wasn’t just that stores were looted, it was that people weren’t being rescued, were totally left to fend for themselves.

I also remember the great blackout of 2003. The phones still worked, but I discovered I had no way to get news about the size and scope of the black out. I got lucky and managed to find eight batteries in my “dead” battery bin that had enough charge to power a radio. I had absolutely no other supplies. I was totally unprepared.

But not anymore. The Zombie Survival Crew tweet to me about having an escape route in case of attack, and I think it’s a good idea. Seriously, what if a bigger, longer blackout hit my city? How would I get my family out of the chaos? I’ve come up with a plan.

First, the highways will be blocked. Hey, they’re totally blocked during morning and afternoon rush hour now, why would the apocalypse be any different? So instead of trying to head north out of the city, I’d head south for the lake, which isn’t that far from my downtown Toronto home. No, I don’t own a boat, but if it is a true apocalypse and my family were in danger, I’d either negotiate with an owner, hitch a ride, or liberate a boat. I’ve already picked out a convenient marina. Then I’d head east, making for the coast of Lake Ontario near the Trenton Air Force Base. If there is any order left in the province, it will be there. Trenton also has a power dam and may actually have electricity. If not, there are two highways that head north from that area into very sparsely populated countryside, mostly through farmland at first, but after that rugged cottage country. Yes, remote empty cottages.

But is that enough? People send me stuff, and this one made me laugh. How to survive the zombie apocalypse from your pole barn. Yes, they’re trying to sell prefab barns, but at least they have a sense of humor about it. The best part is at the end, when they list one of their sources as “a coworker who has watched Shaun of the Dead too many times.” I also loved their comments on who you don’t want with you: “People in the entertainment industry (actors, singers, models, etc.), People in useless white collar trades like SEOs, marketing professionals, accountants, and salesmen.” I actually would take one salesman with me, but that’s because he’s family and he’s actually pretty savvy.

So prepare for the Zombie Apocalypse. Keep some water and canned food ready. Plan an escape route from your city. And if it actually turns out that I’m wrong and it is a zombie apocalypse, remember that your shed full of gardening tools like axes and shovels is your best source of anti-zombie devices. Have a great weekend.

Thanks for a Great Day

Posted on October 16, 2012 by Mike

The film industry is a great place for a writer who doesn’t want a full time job. I loved it because I spent a lot of time as a daily, going from show to show on a moment’s notice, working on everything from big feature films to YTV kids’ shows. One tradition I noticed was that when the day was over, the regular crew often said to me, “Thanks for a great day.” There was always a sense of relief and it was a sincere compliment. They were happy that I was the guy the union dregged up, and they wanted me to know they appreciated my work. Eventually I did succumb to the lure of money and worked full time on a bunch of shows, and I always continued that tradition when I had extra crew out to operate extra cameras. Thanks for a great day.

29 for Action/Adventure, 51 for Horror! Yeah!

So hey, to all you wonderful people who downloaded Generation Apocalypse last Friday during my promotion day: Thanks for a great day! We reached 29 on the free bestseller list for Action/Adventure and 51 for Horror.

But I’ve been reading Cheryl Kaye Tardiff’s book on how she spiked her sales, and she warns that just doing one free day in a row is wasting momentum. She shows that from her experience, it’s best to break up the five free days granted by the KDP Select contract into two promotions-one for three days and one for two days. Full disclosure here: Tardiff was a fellow member of the Crime Writers of Canada, and while we’ve never met in person, I’ve communicated with her in years past via the CWC Yahoo group, and we’ve probably been in the same room a few times at the Bloody Words Mystery Convention.

I’ll learn from her success. My next promotional day will be two days long. I just have to pick the days and start promoting to ensure another great day.

Marketing Lessons from Missoula, Montana

Posted on October 11, 2012 by Mike

Pearl Jam Ten Guy found alive and well at U of Montana Campus

I have a confession to make: I’m not as big a Pearl Jam fan as my wife, or at least I wasn’t until I went to Missoula, Montana. I liked their music before, and I thought they were talented, but I wasn’t a dedicated fan. I didn’t go looking on iTunes for their music.

But excellent marketing changed all that. I’m a lousy marketer, but here’s what I learned in Missoula:

Lesson One: Love what you do. Pearl Jam loves to play music, especially when in the presence their fans. I know that sounds obvious, but friends still speak bitterly of an R.E.M. concert they attended during which the band made it plain that being up on stage was a nuisance that had to be gotten through as quickly as possible, like painting a bedroom or mowing a lawn. Perhaps they were just too exhausted from all the touring. I bet they lost fans at that concert.

Pearl Jam’s performance in Missoula was the opposite. They were having a blast, as if they had just made it to the big time, as if touring was a new adventure. They played their music excellently, better live than even their studio recorded songs. By the end I had changed from a lukewarm fan to a dedicated fan. I want to go to another concert to hear songs they didn’t play in Missoula. I want to buy more of their music.

Lesson Two: Be dedicated to your fans. Pearl Jam runs a fan club, the Ten Club, and those fans pay to be members and get perks, not freebies, but perks, like early access to ticket sales and discounted merch. In Susan’s case, they had a lottery for good seats in Missoula, and she was one of the lucky winners. We still had to pay for the seats, which weren’t expensive, and we had a great view of the stage. We felt special.

Lesson Three: Market to your fans. Pearl Jam marketed the Missoula concert first to their Ten Club members, and they sold the tickets in pairs. We needed I.D. to pick up these tickets at the Will Call, so the scalpers were totally knee-capped. I met people from all over America and Canada, and many were like Susan and I, one rabid fan, and one lukewarm–soon to be rabid–fan. Not only did this increase their fan base, but at the concert they were surrounded by an exceptionally receptive audience. The local newspaper, the Missoulian, described it as a 6000-voice-strong sing along. Dedicated fans know all the words.

But the band was also fair and reserved a block of seats that had to be purchased in person, so that people from Missoula could also attend the biggest event in town that weekend. Once in the Adams Center, which is on the University of Montana campus, they were very likely converted from curious onlookers to music purchasing fans, which explains why a band that just celebrated its twentieth anniversary has fans that weren’t born when Pearl Jam performed their first concert.

Lesson Four: Reward Your Fans: The lights came up and the band played on, rewarding us with several more songs. Eddie tossed tambourines into the crowd, but not randomly. He chose each recipient with care. One man in a wheelchair couldn’t possibly compete for one, so Eddie talked to a closer fan, tossed him the coveted tambourine, which he in turn tossed high up the seats to the man in the wheelchair. But Eddie wasn’t done. He called to the go-between fan and followed up with one for him, a reward for being cool and giving up the tambourine as requested even though he had briefly held it. I loved it. The crowd loved it.

How will I apply all these lessons to marketing my novels? I’m still working on that, and I’m open to suggestions, but the biggest lesson I take from that concert is to be genuine. None of this felt contrived or engineered. It just was. That’s what makes it great.

Beyond the Slushpile

Michael Andre McPherson