This Year in Stuff

I've been noticing a lot of people saying what they are grateful for, what they are regretting and their resolution(s) for the upcoming year. Personally, I regret nothing. Good, or bad, I try to walk away from a situation with knowledge that I didn't have prior to the event, this way I can either (hopefully) prevent it from happening again, or better my chances of repeating it. That's just me.

I was thinking of simply doing a "here's what I did do" post. I'll keep it book related so there's nothing silly like I GOT NEW SHOES, although I did get new shoes an they are black with yellow across the bottom....nevermind.

This year I had 3 publications:

Chronicles of M 3: A'loc  - http://www.chroniclesofm.com/chronicles-of-m-aloc-book-3.html
Chronicles of M 4: Consequences - http://www.chroniclesofm.com/com-consequences-book-4.html
Hitori (A CoM Standalone) - http://www.chroniclesofm.com/hitori.html

Both CoM 3 and Hitori have bounced in an out of the bestseller list on Amazon (US and UK) and so far have been well received, which is nice to see.

I did a couple local events: Free comic book day and Comic book day of the dead via Elite Comics and met a number of fantastic artists (many found here: http://www.chroniclesofm.com/artists-corner.html) whom I will probably work with in the near future to start turning Book 1 into a comic form..providing a kickstarter is successful to pay them first. Damont Jordan is working on making me a cover for Hitori and The Five Man Midget Death Squad.

I was going to do the big comic convention here in KC - Planet Comicon, but through a series of happy accidents I will not be attending. Essentially, I gave the owner a CC that was going to expire next month. As soon as I realized the error, I messaged him about it and never got a reply, a couple weeks later the new cards showed up and my wife activated them (thus deactivating the old cards early). By this time I realized that, it wasn't financially worth the time to do the Con anyways.

Between the cost of the Con and the insane cost of printing books to sell, I'd be lucky to break even after such an event. To me these Cons, big or small, are about two things: getting my name out there and selling books. Every day I talk to people all across the world. Right now there are people reading this that live outside the US, much less this state. So, local exposure isn't that big of a deal with what I do, especially when it is going to cost me money. Because I tend to operate globally, it's much easier and cheaper for me to sell digitally. By keeping my costs down (avoiding costly Cons and printing books) I can concentrate my funds on editing and the occasional book cover.

Strangely, a lot people seem to think writers make fists full of cash off their creations. This is highly untrue. Even bouncing in and out of the bestseller lists I essentially break even on these stories. The biggest reasons for this are that I publish a book every 2-4 months and I haven't done any real advertising. What you see on the net from me on facebook, twitter, the occasional website was by and large free, or dirt cheap. I am not complaining at all about this. I am extremely happy that this glorified hobby generates enough cash to maintain itself. It means someone out there is reading/enjoying this stuff. So, thank you for that.  <3 

So, there we are: 2013 in a nutshell. Later today I'll probably post something about hopes and goals of 2014, then an update on my current project: Five Man Midget Death Squad.