Hey everyone! A new update on the YouTube Channel! I’ve been up to a lot, like being on the radio and starting a podcast! Check the video out below and make sure to like and subscribe to stay up to date on any new info!
So, in my last post, I laid out three things in store for this year.
1. That A New Daybreak will be out this fall.
2. There will be at least two short films set in the world of The Savannah Zombie Novel series.
And
3. There may, or may not be, a soft reboot in store for the series.
Now, what’s the difference between a “soft reboot” and a “hard reboot”?
A hard reboot is like when Sony made the Amazing Spider-Man movies, rebooting the universe that Sam Raimi built. The first Amazing was well received, but the second one, not so much. This caused ol Spidey to be rebooted again, this time into the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Spider-Man: Homecoming.
Each time, although the basic premise was the same, the story was changed drastically. Especially for poor old Uncle Ben. At least they didn’t actually show his death in Homecoming, cause c’mon. Three times is too much.
Then look at the reboot of The Fantastic Four. (Don’t watch it though, just look at it from a safe distance. It’s a stinker.) They almost completely redid the concept of the Fantastic Four, where it really could have been it’s own movie and just took the Fantastic Four title off the project.
Hard reboots can be hard to swallow, especially when there is a dedicated fan base already attached to the franchise.
This is where the soft reboot comes into play.
Think the Star Wars sequels.
The new episodes, starting with The Force Awakens, were essentially a soft reboot in the series. They still continued the main story line set up by George Lucas, but were designed to make Star Wars accessible to new fans, by tweaking old characters, adding new characters, and rehashing old themes.
Now, maybe Star Wars isn’t the best example, because like I said before, reboots can be hard for dedicated fanbases. And Star Wars has a little bit of a dedicated fanbase. And some of them didn’t appreciate the changes made. The Force Awakens was too much like A New Hope. The Last Jedi went the complete other way and has become extremely divisive amongst fans.
Ok, maybe Star Wars wasn’t that great of an example…
Anyways, the changes I have in store for the Savannah Zombie Novel series are not quite as drastic as Disney’s vision for the Galaxy Far, Far Away.
Enough of me explaining reboots (and probably poorly) and more explaining why I feel the need to reboot.
1. When I started this whole thing, I had no idea what I was doing.
If you’ve followed this blog for any amount of time, you’ve probably heard me harp on this a few times. But if this is you’re first time here, this is it in a nutshell:
The Savannah Zombie series started off as a low budget zombie movie idea a friend and I had in high school. I wrote up an outline and a few pages of script on some notebook paper. And that’s about as far as we got. We had no money, we had no equipment, and this was before you could just shoot decent video on your phone.
The story lay dormant for years, until one day I dusted off the outline and turned the first few scenes into chapters. I shared them with a new friend and he enjoyed them and told me to write more. So I did. And suddenly, there was this book beginning to take shape.
Around this same time, my wife gave me a Kindle for Christmas. And I began downloading a bunch of zombie novels. Some were good, some not so much. But I realized that some were self-published, and that was something I didn’t even realize was possible.
Don’t even get me started on print paperbacks.
So I set out self publish this little zombie novel I had been writing, and the snowball kept getting bigger and bigger until finally I had this book out there and no idea what to do next.
Well, I knew there was more story. So I wrote a short story. And then a second book. And then another short story. And I’ve been working on book three for about a 1000 years now. (Slight exaggeration.)
But along the way, I learned more about writing, about publishing, and just more in general. Stuff that would have been great to know when I start d getting his whole author journey.
But now, I find myself at this crossroads of do I keep pushing ahead with what I have; or do I stop and try to adjust some of this shaky foundation I made five years ago?
Which brings me to point number two:
2. I’ve grown as a writer.
If you’ve been with me since A New Death, then you may have noticed this. Those first few chapters of book one are okay, but even I can see the difference in my writing style between the beginning and the ending of that book. CJ’s Story and A New Darkness are the same way. With each new work, I see a tremendous growth in my writing and becoming comfortable with my voice.
And that brings me back to the reboot idea. I’d really like to go back and reset some of those “fractures” in the beginning of the series. I would go back and change a few things story wise, things I wasn’t sure I wanted to do when I started.
Now if I had an editor when I published A New Death, I probably could have avoided some of these issues. But I didn’t, and there’s not much I can do about that now.
3. Honestly, there’s just a few things I would like to change.
For starters, the story just starts. When I originally wrote it, I was coming from a movie script background and thought of the story as the zombie movie I wanted to see.
Which is great and I always recommend thinking of writing that way, but novels are different and I think I did the characters and the readers a disservice by not letting you get to know the cast a little bit more before we dove right in.
I’d like to change a few relationships and just clarify some plot lines a little better.
So, that’s it. That’s what I’m thinking. Now the question is do I do all this before finishing and publishing A New Daybreak?
Alright, so I may be posting this a little late in order to promote the book signing, but the whole thing kind of just materialized out of nowhere anyways.
So, October totally snuck up on me this year.
I knew it was October. I knew Halloween was coming, because me and my daughter have been planning on being Darth Vader and Princess Leia for the longest time now. But the fact that it was October and that it’s been 4 years since I first released A New Death into the wilds of the internet, that completely slipped my mind.
4 years.
Isn’t it crazy how time just flies by?
4 years ago and I just had this silly idea of self-publishing a zombie e-book amongst a sea of zombie e-books.
Silly, silly Joshua.
Anyways, as I often do, I got somewhat reflective and nostalgic about the past 4 years. My cousin played a small part in it as well, as he is in the process of writing his first novel and asked me a few questions the other day.
Which led to the above video.
I recorded this the day before the book signing, so my apologies for not telling you sooner.
But you can still listen in on the five (now six) things I wish I knew before I published my first novel. These are completely subjective and were really the first things that came to mind when I asked myself the question of what would I have done differently.
1. I wish I would have taken it a little slower at the beginning.
I remember finishing the first draft and the sense of relief and accomplishment I felt. I also remember feeling the impending doom of “Okay, now what?” I knew there was editing, formatting for Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook, and promoting to be done, but how? When? But mostly, how? I had no idea what I was doing and just kind of kept putting one foot out in front of the other, hoping that there would be ground underneath, sighing a breath of relief whenever there was.
So, the whole publishing process went fast, maybe too fast. Looking back on it now, I wish I had slowed down and stopped to think about where I was heading with this whole author/publisher thing, but looking back on it now, I’m just reminded of a clip from Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Night:
2. I would have launched the books differently. (read: better)
When I first released A New Death, I launched it just as an e-book. That was the extent of what I planned on doing, as I had no idea that printing options were available. Again, see above gif. So I launched A New Death in the Amazon Kindle ecosystem and into the cold, shallow waters of the Nook. I spent more time with the Kindle, as it was A.) more user friendly and B.) the more popular of the two.
Knowing what I know now, I would have liked to publish both the e-book and the paperback at the same time, so if you’re still waiting for A New Daybreak, know that you’re going to have to wait for me to finish both now. (Sorry.)
3. I would have liked to finish the trilogy before I published them.
Okay, so this one is debatable. And it comes solely from the perspective of me trying to sell and market my books. (Spoilers: I like getting paid for my work.) But my thinking behind this point is this:
People are more apt to dive into a series that they know they can finish and not wait on the author to finish writing them. (Looking at you George R. R. Martin…)
Again, I’m still personally up in the air about this one, but hey, there it is.
4. I wouldn’t have wasted time on e-readers other than the Amazon Kindle.
Remember when I mentioned the Barnes & Noble Nook earlier?
I think I can count on both my hands how many copies I sold on that thing. (That’s less than ten for all my fellow public school kids.)
And the Kobo? Aww jeez, Rick.
Amazon is the Pickle Rick of the e-reader world.
5. I would have spent more time on the print books.
When I first started, print wasn’t even on the radar. I thought that was only something you could get from an actual publisher or one of those vanity publishers, which I knew to stay well clear of.
But there was Amazon, goading me onwards, deeper into the jungles of the self-publishing world.
“Hey, you’ve done e-books with us. Have you met our friend CreateSpace?”
“Why, no Amazon, I haven’t. Nice to meet you, CreateSpace.”
It was something like that, I think. It gets kinda fuzzy after a few years.
Anyways, the paperback versions of my books have been great for making small waves here in Savannah. I’ve been able to do book signings and get my books into some cool local shops, something I would never be able to do with an e-book. This all goes back to me slowing down in the beginning and actually doing some research into self-publishing outside of e-books.
6. I would have treated this more like a job.
There was a shift somewhere, where this stopped being “just some cool thing I could do” and turned into “Man, I would really like to do this for the rest of my life.” I’m not 100% sure when that happened; I think maybe in between CJ’s Story and A New Darkness, or maybe it was there somewhere all along.
I knew eventually though, that I should have been treating it more professionally and more like a job, but still, for some reason I just wasn’t all in. I don’t know.
But I do know now, that I’m stuck in between the rock and hard place of: having a good, well-paying, providing job that sucks the life out of me everyday, but I do it because I love my family and want to take care of them OR this author job, which grants me fulfillment and I enjoying doing, but the financial side of it is, um, questionable.
Knowing now, what I wish I had known then was, if I had slowed down, and thought about this a little bit more than just publishing some e-book, if I had thought about it as a potential career, and then treated it like one, where could I have been now?
But like they say, hindsight is always 20/20.
Can’t say that I would change anything though. It’s been a long ride, and I could have made it a little easier on myself, but to think about all I’ve learned, I think the journey was worth it.
So if you’re just starting out, take my advice, or don’t. You’ll get there eventually and I’ll be there waiting to tell you what I’ve learned in the meantime.
Anyways, I’m making the first pass of edits through Lexx’s Story. Right now it’s all copy-editing and some sentence rearranging. When I edit, I like to knock out the simple stuff first (spelling, grammar, punctuation) and then move on to things like context and content. The first draft is normally for my eyes only, the second only gets seen by beta readers, and the third, well the third is the final, so everybody sees that.
And I mean everybody. (If you haven’t, then you ain’t everybody, and trust me. You want to be everybody.)
That being said, I’d like to open the door for some new beta readers. If you would be interested in receiving an ARC (advanced reader copy), there’s a couple things you gotta do:
1. You have to at least read the rest of the Savannah Zombie Novel series. Lexx’s Story will not make as much sense if you have not read the others.
2. It would be really helpful if you have REVIEWED at least ONE of my other works.
3. Lastly, I would appreciate you posting a review of Lexx’s Story when it releases. Those first reviews are critical for my books to gain any kind of traction and they help other readers know what to expect.
If you are interested in becoming a beta reader, email me at beencalled(at)gmail(dot)com
I will send you an advanced copy of Lexx’s Story and will also open the door for future works. (Book 3 anyone?)
I should mention that I’ve never been good at resolutions.
My bad.
But that being said, I hope I can make it up to you! With these three things!
Behind door number 1: Are you on Goodreads? Cause I am. Do you like free books? Cause right now, on Goodreads, I’m giving away A New Death. (Yes, you heard right!) You can enter into a giveaway and win one of TEN signed copies of the first installment in the Savannah Zombie Novel series! So, you should click here and go enter to so can win! (Heck yes, you should!)
Behind door number 2: I’m a little late on saying this (unless you follow @savzombienovel on twitter) but I’m running a Kindle Countdown Deal in the UK on both books. Well, tomorrow is the last day, so if you live across the pond (Do you guys even like that phrase?) go snatch up some cheap zombie ebook goodness while you can here!
And finally…
Door number 3: Remember CJ’s Story, the short story that takes place between A New Death and A New Darkness? Ever wonder what my voice sounds like? You are in luck! I’m in the process of teaching myself how to make audiobooks and I’m starting with CJ’s Story! And just like the ebook version, I’m making it free to listen to! It’ll be available on Youtube. (You’ve heard of that, right?)
Here’s the thing though: I’m still kinda working out the bugs in the whole audio department. The first episode is up, but I would love some feedback on how it sounds. You can check it out here and leave a comment on what you thought. Thanks so much.
Okay, that’s everything, I think…
Hmm…
Yeah, that’s it. I hope this makes up for not blogging and know that if I’m not posting stuff here, I am working! If you want more up to date info, then it might behoove you (heh, heh, behoove…) to follow the above twitter account. I tend to be there more than here.
