Alex P. Berg's Blog, page 3

Today officially marks one month since my books appeared for purchase in the Amazon store (just under for some of the other, slower vendors). One month! That’s both exciting and somewhat nerve-wracking, because it seems like I haven’t made nearly enough progress on my next project in that time, but I digress.

Given that I often hear about the thirty-day cliff (the point after release at which sales tend to drop precipitously for indie authors), I wanted to record both for myself and for other indie authors my journey in my first month of sales and then compare at the three month mark to see how things are going (which should line up almost perfectly with the release of book two in my Daggers & Steele series, Cold Hard Steele). I wanted to do a little bit of a pro and con style analysis, but that terminology doesn’t totally fit with the information I wanted to present.

So, without further ado, here are the indie publishing experiences that have excited me during my first month as a published author (pros) and those experiences that have been disappointing (cons).

Disappointment: The Launch

While my books went live on the various vendors anywhere from Thursday, Oct. 16th to Sunday Oct. 19th, I waited until Monday Oct. 20th to announce my books to the world on social media. Given the number of people who’d been supporting me on my journey, I’d expected to make a big splash and rocket up the new release charts, at least for a day. So imagine my dismay when I sold a grand total of three books on Oct. 20. Yeah… That wasn’t a fun day. However…

Excitement: Consistent Sales

My (somewhat) surprise hit, Red Hot Steele.

One of the reasons I was upset was because I’d envisioned I’d sell some books to friends and family and then maybe some sales would trickle in here and there in perpetuity. I didn’t expect to see steady sales on my first two books, by me, a total unknown commodity. And yet, that’s exactly what’s happened. I’ve sold at least one copy of Red Hot Steele on Amazon Kindle every single day since release (which doesn’t account for paperbacks or other sales channels). So that’s nice. But even nicer has been…

Excitement: Growing Sales

Red Hot Steele has been picking up steam and doing better over time. In my first week, even with my launch and me promoting my books to everyone I know, I sold an average of 3.3 books per day on Kindle. In the past week, I’ve averaged 6.1 sales per day. That’s pretty dang cool. As much as I hoped my books would gain momentum over time, I didn’t expect it to start happening so soon, and I didn’t think it would happen until I had more novels for sale (at least 5 or so). I also didn’t expect…

Excitement: International Sales

I’ve sold books internationally, in the UK, Canada, and Europe. Not a ton, mind you, but some. And I know for a fact that all of those (with one possible exception), came from people I’ve never met and who had previously never heard of me. Of course, almost all the sales have been for Red Hot Steele, which leads me to…

Excitement/Disappointment: One-sided Sales

While Red Hot Steele has done great, The Genesis Allegory has languished. I’m not sure if I should be excited or disappointed by that, actually. On one side, it’s always disappointing to see that a book has only sold a few copies, but on the other side, it’s more or less what I expected. The Genesis Allegory doesn’t have the same mass market appeal that Red Hot Steele does. And the exciting thing, I guess, is that I really thought Red Hot Steele would appeal to a wide audience, and now that I see it’s selling well, it gives me confidence that I do have realistic expectations about my own work (ie. I’m not delusional about the quality of my own writing). This has been confirmed to me by…

Excitement: Positive Reviews

I’ve yet to receive a negative review for either book, but the response to Red Hot Steele in particular has been great. Nothing but five star reviews online and everyone who’s talked to me in person has told me they loved it. But…

Disappointment: Limited Reviews

All the reviews I’ve gotten online so far have been from people I know, despite my appeals in my book end matter for reviews. I’d hoped for some random ones by now. I also had hoped for more friends and family to leave me kind reviews after appealing to them on Facebook, etc., but I’m still holding out hope that many haven’t read the books yet and not that they’re too lazy to write me a few sentences. And finally, one last random point…

Excitement: Amazon Lists

Maybe one of the best reasons Red Hot Steele has done so well is that it’s managed to place on two key Amazon lists, Mystery>Supernatural>Witches & Wizards and Mystery>Supernatural>Psychics, for almost the entire time it’s been out. It hasn’t cracked the top twenty (to my knowledge), but it’s gotten oh so close a couple times (it’s #22 on the Witches & Wizards list as I speak). Seeing my novel up there, rubbing shoulders with some of the other heavy hitters in the field is uber, DOOPER exciting.

Why, yes, that is my book, Red Hot Steele, right next to Janet Evanovich’s Wicked Appetite.

So, I guess that’s about it. I don’t know if that’s helpful to anyone else or not, or if it really just turned into a long-winded pat on the back for myself, but I think it’ll be a helpful reminder to myself that success is possible. Maybe it’ll be a reminder for all of you aspiring authors out there, as well, and an impetus for you to keep writing.

The post The One Month Published Author Introspective appeared first on Alex P. Berg.

Your friend/family member/acquaintance/random dude you sort of remember Alex (that’s me by the way) is releasing his first two novels, Red Hot Steele and The Genesis Allegory, this Monday, Oct. 20. You know, those books that he’s seemingly been talking about forever, even though it’s really only been a few months and your memory’s clearly not as great as it used to be?

Right, those. With the release date almost here, you’re probably wondering—which one should I buy?

(Presumably you’re wondering this because buying two ebooks, each priced at a whopping $4.99, is just wayyyy too rich for your blood. Don’t worry. I get it. You live in a box under an overpass. Times are tight.)

Well, the obvious thing to do would be to read the blurbs for the books (visible when you go to purchase them) and figure out which one sounds more up your alley, but that would be too easy, wouldn’t it? So let me break it down.

Read Red Hot Steele, part one in my undoubtedly-soon-to-be mega bestselling Daggers & Steele franchise.

Oh… you didn’t expect that kind of blatant honesty? Well, strap in folks, because you’re in for some more.

See, here’s the thing. The Genesis Allegory is a good book. An entertaining book. A what-if book centered on an idea. A book with a gripping plot and a strong element of mystery and intrigue. But it’s also my first book—a book I’ve been working on for almost two years as I’ve learned the craft and smoothed out the roughness at my edges. And more importantly, it’s an epic fantasy book.

Maybe you love epic fantasy, and if so, I hope you’ll enjoy The Genesis Allegory. But it’s not going to appeal to everyone. If you don’t read lengthy science-fiction or fantasy novels, the pacing might not appeal to you. And there’s also the subject matter of the novel, which, as you might’ve guessed, deals with religious allegory.

Now, this is not a pro-religion or anti-religion book in any way. It’s just a made up fantasy novel that happens to have an important element of religious intrigue. Let me say that again—this is a fantasy novel that features a religion similar to (but not exactly the same as) Judeo-Christian ones here in the real world. That alone is going to throw some people for a loop. So even though I feel it’s a powerful story, I know it’s not for everyone.

On the other hand you have Red Hot Steele, my third-world urban fantasy-mystery hybrid. Hold on a moment while I locate my caps-lock key. Oh, dang, it’s broken. Oh well. Just know I’m screaming these next two sentences at you:

Red Hot Steele is awesome! You will love it!

Look, I know you’re not supposed to blatantly shill for your own work, but I’m honestly and truly geeked about this book. I had an absolute blast writing it. I laughed out loud often while typing away at my keyboard. And I think anyone, fantasy reader or not, can enjoy it.

It’s fast paced. It’s funny. It’s got action and witty dialogue and snappy one-liners. It’s got a splash of grittiness and another of sex appeal. It’s got characters you can fall in love with—assuming you like irreverent jerks with a heart of gold.

If that’s not enough of an endorsement for you, here’s a second reason to read Red Hot Steele:

This is me.

This is the kind of book I love to read, the kind I was born to write, and luckily for me, it only took me a little over a year to realize that.

In the future, expect to see more of Daggers & Steele. In fact, book two, Cold Hard Steele, should be out early next year. But also expect to see more books in the same vein as Red Hot Steele. Books with smart, funny, charismatic protagonists. Books full of mystery and adventure and humor. Books that don’t take themselves too seriously, leave you with a smile on your face, and hopefully, make you immediately want to reach for the next one.

Bottom line: I want you to read Red Hot Steele because I’m super, duper, ooper proud of it, and it’s indicative of what you’ll see from me in the future. And I think you’ll really like it.

Thanks for your support.

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If you follow me on Facebook, you’ll undoubtedly already have seen the new covers for my two upcoming novels, Red Hot Steele and The Genesis Allegory. If not, here they are in all their luscious glory.

You’ll also notice there’s been some changes to the website. It’s now a real author website with a blog attached, as opposed to vice versa.

Both books should be available soon, and, of course, I’ll post about it when they are.

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Those of you who know me and have talked to me about writing have probably heard me talk about the Superstars Writing conference before. It’s a business oriented writing conference spearheaded by best-selling science fiction and fantasy author Kevin J. Anderson, and it’s featured numerous recurring guests including Dave Farland, Brandon Sanderson, James A. Owen, Eric Flint, and this coming year, mega best-selling indie author Hugh Howey.

It’s a fantastic conference, one that changed my focus and outlook on writing entirely, and one that motivated me to do far more than I would have ever thought possible. I plan on attending for years to come, and at the one year anniversary of my attendance of the conference this year, I’ll be posting some statistics and numbers showing just how much the conference helped me accomplish.

You might be thinking that a business conference isn’t much fun, but quite the contrary – it’s a blast. The people are fabulous, friendly, and inclusive, and once you join, you’re permanently part of ‘the Tribe.’

Let me tell you a story about the conference to elaborate. In one of Kevin’s seminars on professionalism, he likes to stress the point that if you commit to a project, you’d better produce, no matter how dumb you might think the project is. He always uses the same example: if you agree to write a short story for a purple unicorn anthology, then by golly, you’d better write the best dang piece of purple unicorn short fiction that you can. Your readers deserve it.

The idea, of course, is that an anthology on purple unicorns is about the dumbest thing you can imagine. So this became a running joke. Until this year that is, when after being egged on by numerous attendees, Kevin decided that we’d turn this particular fantasy into reality.

And thus, One Horn to Rule them All was born.

This is a true labor of love for everyone involved with the conference. Attendees submitted stories for it, panelists donated their time and efforts to edit and produce cover art for it, and Kevin ponied up the cash to fund it, all without compensation in the name of charity. Charity, you say? Yes, that’s right. All the proceeds from sales of the anthology go toward providing scholarships to the Superstars conference so that cash strapped authors who wouldn’t otherwise be able to attend get a chance to join us at the next meeting.

And in case you think I’m just promoting this because I’m in it, well guess again. My story wasn’t even good enough to get included! So there! (Maybe I’ll post it here someday – no guarantees though.) And this anthology doesn’t just feature up and coming authors from the conference. It also features some big names like Todd McCaffrey, Jody Lynn Nye, and Peter S. Beagle. Yes, the Peter S. Beagle, author of The Last Unicorn.

So if you have any interest at all in purple unicorns, consider buying it. It’s available in both e-book and trade paperback format through Amazon and Createspace, and it’s for a good cause. Who knows – if it does well enough, maybe there’ll be another volume next year.

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I’m a thief. I admit it. But to be fair, most writers are.

You see every story starts out as an idea. An idea is the barest, most fundamental element of a story. And there really aren’t that many of them. Over the course of human history, pretty much every original idea for a story, when broken down to its most basic structure, has already been used.

That might seem like a bad thing, but luckily for us, copyright law doesn’t protect ideas. It only protects expression of ideas – big difference.

So let’s say I write a story about a detective. Well, clearly, there have been thousands, probably tens of thousands, of those written. What about a wisecracking homicide detective with a sexy partner? Been done too. What about that same tandem in a fantasy world with an element of noir and a heavy dose of the chuckles? Well, that might have been done too (I’m not sure), but we’re finally starting to approach the realm where an idea is growing into something more – the expression of an idea.

At this point you may be wondering to yourself, so how exactly are you a thief? Writers always use other stories as inspiration for their own. You can’t steal ideas. Well, unfortunately, there’s something I forgot to mention.

I like to write comedy.

If you think of writers as borrowing liberally from their peers, think of comedians as brutally efficient safe crackers who are actively robbing you blind.

For those of you not familiar with the subject, there are a couple things you need to know about comedy. The first is that different people find different things funny. The exact same joke, to four different people, might seem funny, tired, confusing, or offensive. The second thing to know is that there’s no way to predict how a joke might affect an audience without trying it.

If you’re a stand-up comedian, you can test a joke out by telling it to a crowd. If it falls flat on its face, you never tell it again. But what about someone who aspires to write funny scenes? You’ve really only got one shot. Once you publish a piece, the jokes and skits you write are out there forever.

So what’s a writer of comedic stuff to do? Simple. Steal. From anyone and everyone. Not blatantly of course – that would be rude. But you do it constantly. If I read something in a novel that makes me chuckle, I make a mental note of it. Every time I snigger at something in a TV show, have a laugh with my buddies, or smile in response to a Facebook post, I try to archive that moment for later use. (It helps to have a good memory in this game.) Every time I encounter something that strikes me as funny, I try to store it for later, so I can whip it out in a story when the moment is right. I might modify it a bit from its original form, whether intentionally or unintentionally – really my memory’s not that good – but it’s pretty much the same bit that made people laugh the first time I encountered it.

So I really am a thief, or at the very least a surreptitious archivist and distributor of humor. I just hope to be sneaky enough about it that nobody will ever notice.

So with that said, please forget everything I just wrote. Thanks.

Image credit: Featured image by Tiago Daniel (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) via Flickr.

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A common refrain in heavy metal music refers to the “gods of heavy metal”, which is probably a sign of the influence of paganism on the genre. I have no idea if the heavy metal gods actually exist, but if they do, I’m pretty sure they live in Sweden. Why, you ask? Let me explain.

If you’re reading this blog, there’s a decent chance you’re a fan of heavy metal. However, if you’re a Swede that’s reading this blog, there’s an excellent chance of you being a metal fan. The Swedes are MASSIVE fans of heavy metal. Just check out this nifty info graphic showing the number of metal bands per 100,000 people in countries around the world:

Now, technically, Finland has more metal bands per capita than Sweden, and many of them are excellent, but the quality of bands that Sweden has produced is incredible. Bathory helped establish both the black metal and Viking metal genres. Candlemass was instrumental in pioneering doom metal. HammerFall is one of Europe’s most successful power metal bands. Gothenburg, Sweden birthed the incredible genre of melodic death metal, which started with At the Gates, Dark Tranquility, and In Flames, and the country has held a stranglehold on the genre ever since through powerhouses like Amaranthe, Amon Amarth, Arch Enemy, Scar Symmetry, and Soilwork.

People in Sweden are crazy over heavy metal, and they know it. A guy was clinically diagnosed with “heavy metal addiction” and awarded government funded disability benefits to help supplement his job as a dishwasher (during which his employer lets him rock out to Slayer). A popular venture capitalist released a book on Heavy Metal Management, which was the bestselling book in Sweden in December of the year it was released and sold over 10,000 e-books in the first two weeks of January alone!

So why is Sweden so metal crazy? Well, if the fine folks over at Citylab would have you believe that the trend has something to do with the wealth of nations, given that wealthier countries around the world are generally more fond of heavy metal. But, as they themselves admit, correlation does not equal causation. I have an alternative theory.

The gods of heavy metal live there.

Why would they do that? Well, let me put forth a few other seemingly random correlations:

Gorgeous, no?

–       Sweden is a land of intense natural beauty. Seriously, check the place out. It’s gorgeous. Let me also mention that many old pagan religions emphasize a strong bond with nature, sometimes making it a fundamental point of their religion. Coincidence?

–       As beautiful as it is, Sweden is also unbelievably, bitterly cold, and in the winter months, parts of Sweden are bathed in eternal darkness. Sounds like the stuff of metal songs, does it not?

Now, you may be thinking to yourself, well what about Antarctica? It’s super dark and cold there, and some might call it beautiful.

True, but here’s the kicker: Vikings.

Scandinavia was the ancestral home of these fierce warriors, who believed in paganism, devoted themselves to Thor and Odin, the gods of war and death, and believed strongly in the ideals of battle, kinship, and mysticism. Now, you could say that heavy metal merely is a modern manifestation of many of these same ideals, and that the genre is so popular in Sweden due to the lingering influence of the Vikings on the culture. Or perhaps, the metal gods, those same ones who granted the Vikings their strength and power, are now granting that same boon to heavy metal musicians, who are harnessing said power and converting it into incredible, earth-shattering music.

I mean, honestly, which is more plausible? I rest my case.

Image credit: Featured image by Mazurw (CC-BY-2.5) via Wikimedia Commons. Post images by unknown (CC BY-SA 2.0) and netzanette (CC BY-NC 2.0) via Flickr.

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