Posted by Bob Greenberger on December 31, 2012
Last day of a tough year, made tougher by yesterday’s news that my longtime, close friend Peter David had a stroke. But, the end of the year brings about a chance for reflection, an opportunity to be reminded of the highs and lows.
The highest high is that in May I was awarded my Master’s Degree in Education and the year ended with the state certifying me on the 21st, the last step before employment. I never thought I’d need a Master’s in anything, then again, I didn’t expect to need a second career so change is one of those annoying certainties.
Coupled with those highs were the lows that were the first round of student teaching and the frustration that were my two online courses this summer. Thankfully, the fall student teaching was far more satisfying and useful.
In my other profession, I managed to complete packaging the second graphic novel for the Discovery Channel and Zenescope’s Silver Dragon Books imprint. It turned out well despite the constant revisions that caused us to run late. My long-delayed The Art of Howard Chaykin book finally saw print as did the well-received Star Trek: The Complete Unauthorized History. In the digital world, Crazy 8 Press released my contribution to the Latchkeys universe, The Ugly Little Bloke. The series has such promise but a digital series for YA readers just hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves. Then there’s ReDeus: Divine Tales, which debuted in August, got some nice notices and sales, encouraging me, Aaron Rosenberg and Paul Kupperberg to ready two more volumes for 2013. Some people think well enough of my creative work as witnessed by Hallmark inviting me out to lecture on worldbuilding in October. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Bob Greenberger on August 9, 2012
One of the things about digital publishing is that sometimes you hit glitches that can baffle even the finest of mind. Last October, my short story, “A Matter of Faith”, was posted as a $.99 digital short at Nook and Kindle. It sat there like so many other books. But then in January, Nook pushed it in one of their weekly newsletters and sure enough, there was a smattering of sales. I clicked over to check the Kindle sales and saw that the book’s price vanished.
I contacted the Kindle people and they explored the problem, assured me they found the error and fixed it. Nope, still showing up without a price. Finally, this Spring, Amazon told webmaster Glenn Hauman that it was a digital rights management issue requiring a fresh file. There was no DRM involved but he shrugged and reposted the file. Same problem. Finally, it was fixed on Thursday and the story is finally available for those reading via Kindle.
Meantime, as you may recall, I’m involved in several digital initiatives not only through Crazy 8 Press, but as a member of the HiveMind. Since January, we have been releasing installments in our Young Adult Latchkeys series, which has also languished a bit. The lesson here is that the audience we’re aiming at doesn’t necessarily have Kindles or Kindle apps or permission to buy the books, meaning we need their parents to be aware of the series and think well enough of the premise to buy it for their family. We’re up to book five (all available at C8) and book six will be out in September. Our goal will be to collect the first six as a print book for the rest of the world which should be available this fall, in plenty of time for Christmas.
An ancient, magical house.
Doors that lead to anywhere.
A group of kids charged to protect them.
But from what? An exciting new children’s series that takes you everywhere — and everywhen.
If you like YA fantasy, I urge you to give it a try. And then tell me what you think.
Posted by Bob Greenberger on March 22, 2012
I’ve been thinking a lot about marketing of late. Over at Crazy 8 Press, we continue to try and figure out how best to get the word our when we have new material to offer. There are five of us with Facebook pages, blogs, and Twitter accounts plus our C8 website and Twitter feed. Still, I question whether or not we’re getting the word out as loudly or as broadly as we should. And if I am right, what aspects are missing?
With the Latchkeys series, there are 13 of us involved so we’re trebling the number of people we have screaming about the books but the sales don’t seem to indicate anyone is listening. (So, if you haven’t sampled books one and two, you might want to consider supporting the arts.)
At Lunacon this past weekend, I sat in on a panel discussing the value of Book Trailers and while they are pretty and do something, no one was convinced they helped sell actual copies of print or eBooks which I found dispiriting. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Bob Greenberger on March 4, 2012
I have been totally remiss in discussing my lengthy work with peers in creating a brand new universe. No, not the After Earth movie, but something brand new.
As many of you know, I am a member of the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers, it says so right on the right side of the page. We have a mailing list and one of the frequent laments is that there is nowhere near enough work to around. In late 2008, someone suggested maybe we should just create our own universe and have that play in. So was born the HiveMind with our pal Steven Savile playing ring leader.
He offered us his notion for something called Latchkeys and invited us to come play in his sandbox which rapidly became our sandbox. We got very excited when it looked like we had a deal for these to be mobile stories for cellphones or the deal that would have these as original audiobooks. As Steve pursued the deals, the rest of us created characters, settings, and began tossing in our story ideas.
When it looked like we really had someone buying our wares, we finalized the bible, approved a handful of stories and organized a batting order of authors starting with Steve, naturally, and then he decided I should go second.
After many disappointments and delays, it began to look like the deals were never going to happen but in the meantime, fellow HiveMind member Aaron Rosenberg and I became part of Crazy8Press and that became a natural new home for Latchkeys so we could write and sell our stories directly to readers. While C8 was organizing itself, I spent part of last summer finally able to write my installment.
The series launched in January and our goal is to release a new story every six weeks and today, as it happens, is when the second book goes on sale for Nook and Kindle readers. I am proud of my contributions, which I discussed in more detail over at Crazy8Press.
Each chapter will cost you all of $.99 so it’s a cheap investment in entertainment but if you remain unconvinced, we even have a free preview of my story for you to sample.
I’d love for all my readers to buy the story and more importantly, if you like it, tell your friends.
