Nick Bryan

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How To Be Number One! (In the Dark Comedy category on Amazon US!)

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News that social media followers probably already know! For around a day, dawn to dusk on Thursday 12th March 2015, my self-published crime epic The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf was the most popularest, bestest book in the Dark Comedy category on Amazon US. If you don’t believe me, here’s a screenshot.

BEHOLD THE ORANGE STRIPE OF VALID LITERATURE

Now, much as I’d love to pretend this was an entirely natural spurt of love for me, I did require some advertising to achieve this. For anyone who wants a tiny wee glimpse into the inner workings of the self-publishing DIY promotion world, harnessing the resources available to reach the very top of a fairly uncompetitive Amazon category, this is your moment.

Quite cool, as the bulk of my existing readers are in the United Kingdom, so sales across the Atlantic had been quite modest until now. This is an important step in breaking America. If Doctor Who and Sherlock can do it, then so can Hobson & Choi!

As you can see, I also placed in some more challenging crime-related categories

Also, I was in the mid-80s of the overall humour (or “humor”) category on the site, which I was quite pleased with.

Anyway – long story short, I advertised the book with Fussy Librarian on Tuesday 10th (costing $7) and Ereader News Today on Wednesday 11th (costing $35), and by the morning of Thursday 12th, I was atop my category, so mission accomplished.

If you’re wondering how many book sales this requires, it’s about 85. So for my total $42 investment, that’s about two books per dollar. Not bad, although due to the first book in the series being a cheap hook-them-in deal, I didn’t quite make my initial investment back.

I found the people to advertise with by lurking for a while in the Writer’s Cafe section of KBoards. Although actually posting isn’t mandatory, a lot of people do share their experience, particularly of different promoters. There’s even a spreadsheet here if you just want a big list.

Obviously, the long-term dream is for the book to either sell itself or make a huge profit on advertising. More short-term, it’d be pretty sweet if some of the 85 people who bought the first book just now leave a review and/or pick up the second one.

So yup, this is the ultimate plan. Promote first book, hope it fires through to later books. Ereader News Today is one of the biggest and most reliable promotions, it seems, so future efforts may not be quite as huge.So, in case anyone was interested, that was my achievement this week. We’re still at #12 in Dark Comedy as of this writing, so that’s nice. If you want to help me achieve pleasure via numbers, feel free to buy the Hobson & Choi darkly comic crime books, but no pressure. I blog for love.

“No-one else dies tonight!” – Nick Bryan’s Ongoing Commitment To Making Fewer Mistakes

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It’s been a while since I wrote about writing – in fact, it’s been a while since I wrote a blog which didn’t hinge around the Buy my work! message. So, since it’s late on a Sunday and I’m feeling too tired from last night’s drinking to do any hard labour, I thought I’d break things up on the blog by talking about my current writing obsession: not fucking up.

A couple of months back, I finished drafting a fantasy novel which ended up having the bulk of its middle act and about half its third erased – not after the first draft (which is kinda acceptable) but after I’d finished a beta-readable draft and thought things were going okay.

More recently than that, I went back to the third and final major Hobson & Choi webserial storyline, ready to punch it up for eventual book release. Rather than just chopping and changing a few scenes, adding chapters to flesh stuff out and punching up the writing – as per the first two books – I ended up deleting much of the final third of the story and starting over.

(So yes, H&C serial readers, it might be worth buying the third book, as not only will you get a new bonus story, but also a large chunk of the main storyline entirely reimagined. The new timeline will be used for the books going forward, while the original serial events drift off into non-canon limbo.)

Having been editing these various projects solidly for the best part of six months, my insistent feeling that this level of trashing material must never happen again is getting prohibitive. Don’t get me wrong – it’s obviously quite positive that I’m able to recognise these problems, plan changes and execute them, rather than getting hung up on killing my darlings or whatever. But the more often it happens, the more I start thinking… surely eventually I’ll be able to avert it earlier, right? Eventually I will live in a creative utopia where first drafts sing and dance perfectly in the pasture?

During breaks from editing, I’ve started laying down early scenes for something entirely new, and find myself semi-paralysed by the knowledge that I might eventually have to delete a load of it. Like when Spider-Man feels guilty about not saving someone and makes some weird vow that no-one else will ever die again, I suspect a commitment to total perfection isn’t sustainable.

All that happens is this: you write six-thousand word planning documents, hoping that if you prepare enough, the odds of needing to ditch and rewrite shrink a bit. And then you put off ever starting the first draft, because if you think about a project long enough, there’s always some small problem you can’t quite solve.

Realistically, the metaphorical Green Goblin (I just like comics, okay?) of me fucking up is still going to be out there no matter how much I plan and I’ve just lost the knack of fear-free first drafting after so many months editing.

Regardless of all this introspection, the fact is: once I get the third H&C done, I’ m going to have to get back to scribbling new stuff somehow, as I will simply run out of things to edit. Well, unless I pull out one of my abandoned novels from my early twenties and try to rewrite that instead of doing anything new, but… no, let’s not give me ideas.

2014 – A Writrospective

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Because it’s a retrospective about my writing, you see? So it’s a writrospective! Even if you don’t care about me or my work, surely it was worth clicking on the blog post just for that pun? See diagram for more details.

Anyway. I have more or less reached the point where all my free time is booked for the remainder of the year. Might squeeze in an hour or two somewhere, but I doubt any more substantial writing work will happen before 2015 hits.

So I thought I’d take this chance, late on a Thursday night, to look back on what I did/achieved this year, in and around writing, and whether it met my lofty goals from twelve months ago. Don’t worry, it won’t be pure self-congratulation – I missed almost all of those goals, but not completely.

ONE – Self-Publish Hobson & Choi

At the start of the year, roaring through the second major storyline, I’d already more or less settled on the idea of self-publishing my Hobson & Choi webserial in some form. We were some distance away from the final format but my vague goal was: get one – maybe two – H&C books out by the end of 2014.

Well, The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf appeared in July 2014, book two is scheduled for late January 2015. I think I’m going to say this goal was almost entirely a success. Don’t worry, misery-fans, this is the only one.

Not only has that first book sold a few copies (not millions, but more than I’d conservatively estimated), but it was stocked by the excellent Big Green Bookshop as part of their small press programme and sufficiently demanded by readers to graduate from the small press shelf to the big press table.Look, here it is in situ:

That picture definitely makes me happy I paid for a decent cover so my book wouldn’t look embarrassing next to others. Anyway,  if you live anywhere near Big Green and want a copy, go grab one there. And if you too are a bookshop and want to stock H&C, get in touch and we should be able to sort something.

For the non-bookshops among you, stay tuned for Rush Jobs in around a month. Cover reveal coming dangerously soon after January starts. Sign up for the launch blog tour here if you want.

TWO – Finish drafting fantasy devil-based novel, send it to agents

I haven’t entirely managed this one. But as of about a month ago, I have completed the first clause, a good draft is done, so I don’t feel like a complete waster. Basically, two things happened to get in the way of this goal:

  1. The above-mentioned H&C self-publication.
  2. Editing, beta-reading and yet more editing took longer than I expected.

On the one hand, I’m quite pleased with the systematic, steady and ultimately (I hope) successful approach I took to editing this one. On the other, it still took a while. There are only a handful of scenes in the book that haven’t been rewritten and/or replaced entirely once since the first draft, and some multiple times.

I know a few people who are currently trying to get editing done, we all finished our first drafts at a similar-ish time, and I think we’re all finding the next stage takes a lot longer than we expected. Such is life. When screwing around with a big house of cards, one change has more knock-on effects than you expect.

Still, damn near there now. I’ve been working on my cover letter and hopefully the second half of the target can take a battering in the new year. Woohoo/gulp.

THREE – Write first draft of new lighter-hearted adventure novel

We’re basically at the Total Failure section now. Well, I lie, I wrote the first 1,500 words of this novel yesterday, largely to avoid admitting I’d blown this target.

Obviously, this plan imagined a world where I finished the fantasy book much earlier, spent the last third-ish of the year sending it to agents and could do a decent chunk of this first draft for NaNo. Instead, I spent NaNo concluding those edits and this didn’t happen.

Still, once the Rush Jobs publication is out of the way, I live in hope that I will be able to forge on with this and have (at the very least) a non-shit first draft done by the end of 2015, if not a complete second or third out to betas.

And this, kids, is how I live, constantly balancing targets to make sure I can never relax for a second. I also have about five thousand words of notes on the project after this one, but I’m not putting that on the official to-do list yet, as I value my mental stability.

Still, despite the theoretical missing of many targets, I got a lot done this year, and that’s not even counting the almost-50 chapters of H&C webserial I wrote. I have almost two real books (as illustrated above) to show for it. Writing-wise, things are moving along. I even went to my first ever convention at Nine Worlds and had a great time.Go team me.

Maybe I deserve the enforced fortnight off writing I’m about to have. If I don’t make it back before Christmas, have a good one. I should go to bed now. The now-regular annual Top Ten TV Shows should follow after I’ve seen the Doctor Who Christmas Special.

SERIAL KILLER – Hobson & Choi webserial conclusion contemplation

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As you’ve hopefully struggled to miss if you follow my various web presences in the last few days, the last chapter of the Hobson & Choi webserial on JukePop debuted on the site, bringing the whole 1.75 years of its life to a close.

The story of Hobson and Choi themselves will continue in the self-published book editions, the second of which comes out in January. However, future cases will be written in longer chapters, entirely with the books in mind. I thought the loss of week-to-week serialisation from my life warranted a few words.

PREVIOUSLY ON

As I’ve said in various places, including the quick blurb at the end of the final serial chapter, I grew up on serialised books, TV shows and comics and they still form a majority of my cultural intake. So yeah, a weekly serial, with a breathing universe to slowly unpick and characters who unfold other time, is always something I’ve wanted to do.

The heavily serialised nature of the H&C web version, with characters coming and going, smaller story arcs unfolding within bigger ones and plot threads drifting around before finally exploding, is very much something I’ve taken from those. The way characters took on their own lives, combining in interesting ways and weaving together to form the wider tapestry of the Hobson & Choi universe was exactly like I hoped it would be.

DARK TURN

Unfortunately, it was kinda its own undoing in the end – the bitty nature of the text made it harder to translate into novel format, and since those are intended as the ‘final form’ of the whole story, the one that might make proper money from it, it seemed foolish to keep on with the weekly serial, generating more work and making little cash.

Honestly, what I’d love to do is start a Patreon or similar for an ongoing serial in the H&C format (about 1.5-2k word weekly chapters, not necessarily crime genre) fully intended for and owning that structure, justifying itself through the regular flow of backer money. And then I could probably do some kind of collected editions as well, but it would be less pivotal that they succeed.

Unfortunately, not sure I’m there yet in terms of fan following, but one day, my friends. Maybe once the H&C books sell a few thousand million copies.

TRIUMPHANT MOMENT

Anyway, just because the H&C serial is going away, I don’t want to shit on what I did achieve. As of now (29th Nov 2014), H&C is still the most voted serial ever on JukePop, along with the various monthly chart achievements and biannual award win. I’ve had loads of comments, received good reviews on various websites and met some excellent people through the webserial community, both on JukePop and beyond.

So yes, it was great to live my writing-a-serial dream, but the fact other people came on board and gave a damn was almost better. I knew Angelina was a decent character, but actual teenage girls getting in touch say they totally felt for her, rather than screaming at me for butchering their demographic, is definitely going on the list of achieved writing goals.

Not yet had any cynical detectives with dark pasts get in touch to compliment my portrayal of Hobson, but there’s still time, guys! Email me now!

TO BE CONTINUED

If you’re worried that this is the beginning of the slow death of the H&C franchise, I hope to prove you wrong. Already written the first 5000 words of Case Four, the first post-serial story, and Case Two is damn near ready to go in January. Will start whipping Case Three into book shape that same month.

In the meantime, if you want more H&C right now, as ever, Case One – The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf – is out now and features an exclusive bonus story digging into one aspect of the universe. That extra story is a decent length too, quite pleased with it. Another fun aspect of owning my own serial world. A similar book-only story will be bundled with Case Two in January.

There’s also a short exclusive H&C case available to mailing list subscribers, so if you go sign up now, the link to download that will be emailed over, and you’ll be told when important future H&C/Nick Bryan developments happen.

That really is it, guys. I think I’m done looking back wistfully over the weekly H&C serial, it’s time to march onto 2015 with our eye set firmly on future book-shaped developments. It’s been good, though. Hopefully I’ll get to do it again one day.

Pros And Cons Of Reading Your Writing Out Loud (or Why I Was Talking To Myself, Honest)

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Reading Aloud - The Dream

From eleven o’clock yesterday morning until seven in the evening, I sat at my desk alone, reading out the first sixty percent of my current nearly-finished work in progress. (The second book of the Hobson & Choi series, since you asked.)

For a couple of years now, the read-out-loud has been the final step of any work before I show it to other people. I vocalise the entire text to an empty house. If you don’t do this, I’m not going to tell you it’s essential (because different strokes for different folks and I would never tell you how to stroke yourself), but if you’ve never even tried it, here’s how it works for me.

The Actual Process, Actually

There are no major secrets in my process. It goes like this:

  • Sit at desk with manuscript open.
  • Read out a scene, making changes whenever I hit such problems as:
    • That phrasing sounds clunky.
    • I’ve used that word twice in a short space of time.
    • I’ve written “actually” eight times in this sentence, because I always bloody do.
  • Keep going until I become distracted or need to pee/eat/other.
  • Continue afterwards.

As well as obvious issues that crop up within a scene or paragraph, reading it out makes me more likely to spot issues over a wider space of time. For example, earlier today, I noticed I’d described a character’s clothes using the exact same three words, three scenes apart. These things happen, obviously, but feels good when I catch them.

Maybe I take in the details more when I force the words out of my mouth, rather than maybe lapsing into scan mode when merely eye-reading. Anyway, I genuinely think it goes a long way towards making the final work natural and readable and if you haven’t tried it, it’s worth a go at least once.

Fully Soundproof Balls Of Steel

No-one is perfect, of course. Here are some downsides or issues I have encountered while using this amazing wonder-method to change my life.

As I’ve said before, most impressively on this video-blog, I struggle to get work done in my house. To write with efficiency or volume, I generally sit in local cafes, living the hipster-writer-ponce dream. Unfortunately, unless you have gleaming balls of steel, reading your writing (especially a full-length novel) out to yourself in public is hard to pull off.

Every time I spend a whole day reading out, I look back and see an hour or two I could’ve spent working, rather than procrastinating in various ways. In future, I might try only reading for half the day and going out for the other bit, so I can feel some degree of Full Productivity. At least, until I can persuade my local cafe to install a fully-soundproofed Writer Cubicle for me to work in.

The other related issue: by the time you’ve edited your book a few times and decided on a final polish via the reading-out method, you might be close to sick of it. Forcing the entire text out between your teeth will probably not help, and only make the afore-mentioned procrastination problem worse.

Again, breaking it down into smaller sessions may help, or slotting in some other writing task between drafts to get some distance from it. Failing that, I promise myself some reward at the end (usually from the Food or TV genres) and ram myself through the task mercilessly.

But despite these minor pitfalls, I still think reading out your work is a worthwhile endeavour to consider. If you suddenly want to hear me reading out some work after this post, you can still get all 33 chapters of the Hobson & Choi Podcast on iTunes. Enjoy, and if you have any reading-out tips to share, that is what the comments are for.

Hobson & Choi – Updates & End-dates

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Hobson & Choi, my ongoing webseries about two mismatched detectives and their weird adventures in a horribly corrupt modern London, has experienced a strong few months. We’ve done well on Jukepop Serials, the first collected book edition has come out and also put in a strong showing. So since we had a big positive announcement today, it seemed a good time to do a general H&C post, talk about stuff, make some declarations.

Hopefully it’s all ultimately going to be good news. But be warned: your emotions may vary. Let’s start with the really obvious flag-waving upbeat section.

VICTORY PARADE

So, not only have we been #1 in the monthly Jukepop Serials charts for the last couple of rounds – which would be pretty excellent in itself – but we recently crossed a pretty big boundary: Hobson & Choi now has the most votes of any serial in the history of the site.

Look, here’s a screen grab of that fact, taken on the evening of Oct 16th.

To be honest, that’s basically our biggest single achievement on that site – it’s amazing that the many and varied readers of Jukepop have embraced the story, and thanks to everyone and anyone who voted, commented, reviewed or recommended us anywhere and other such things. Hooray.

We also won the biannual prize, finally announced today, for getting the most votes in the six months between April and September. This win was helped by big boosts from the book launch and releasing twice-weekly chapters for ten weeks. All of which means we win $500, which is almost all going into promo/expenses for the H&C novels. Brilliant stuff, thanks again.

And now, to conclude this victory lap, here’s a short video by fellow JP author, recent successful Kickstarter organiser and friend-of-the-serial Virginia McClain.

Crossing The Finish Line

Here’s another announcement I’ve been sitting on: the Hobson & Choi webserial is finishing with the upcoming gala-sized H&C #100. That should be with you in late November, unless I injure myself.

It’s not the end of the Hobson & Choi story, that will continue in book form, but it is the end of Angelina Choi’s two-week work experience, the wrapping up of a few major subplots and, I’ve decided, a reasonable place to draw a line.

Basically, I’m doing this to focus on the book editions. That was always the plan, and since I’m approaching a clear breakpoint and am on a high in terms of Jukepop achievements (see above), this seems the right time to burn out rather than fade away.

The serialised nature of the original chapters is only causing more work when editing them into book form, not to mention I might sell more copies of later books if I stop giving all the material away for free (even if in a less polished form).

So this is it. Six chapters to go, four of which I’ve already written, and then we’re all done with the serial. Leaving us only with…

Hobson & Choi: The Glorious Book Editions

Since I’ve just announced I’m ditching the webserial for them, let’s have an update on the H&C novels. Book Two came back from the editor a couple of weeks ago, and I am hoping to enact the changes by the end of this month, just in time to consider whether I want to do NaNoWriMo after all.

The cover is also coming soonish, but to make sure I have enough time to deal with the actual technical self-publishing stuff, get the print and ebook editions out at the same time, plan some promotion and avoid competing with Santa, the actual publication date will most likely be in January.

Book Three to follow, probably in late spring/early summer, and then we’re into all-new book-only material.

Phew. So yeah, it’s a pretty busy time in the H&C section of my schedule. I also have a fantasy novel which I’m nursing through various latter-stage drafts, so I’m keeping occupied.

If you want to encourage me in my dreams, feel free to buy The Girl Who Tweeted Wolf (aka H&C Case One) from one of the many buy links on this page. If you’ve purchased your copy already, why not leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads? Or subscribe to the mailing list and get a free all-new H&C short story?

If you’ve done all that, you’re probably alright. Thanks for reading. Time for a nap, I think. Feel free to leave any heartfelt eulogies for the Hobson & Choi webserial in the comments, I’ll probably write my own once the end comes.