Jeff Haws

Independent author

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Archives for August 2016

What Should You Talk About at a Book Festival?

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This Saturday, I’ll be speaking about my book, “Killing the Immortals,” at the Decatur Book Festival. I’m actually the first speaker after the main guy in the Emerging Writers Tent (10:10 a.m.), which is for highlighting indie and small-publisher authors. I got that first spot because of my immense fame, and the crushing amount of interest in my talk. Or because I signed up first. I’ll let you decide which.

I’d love to see any of you there. It’d be great to have more than just my mom — who’s going to roll her way up there on a broken foot — and some friends who want to lend some eyeballs for support. If you want to come, definitely do it. It’s free, and there’s tons more to see and do there. Especially if you have kids. They love them some kids at this fest.

So, what am I going to be talking about? This will be my first time speaking publicly about it. I’m used to answering questions from people by now. And, I don’t know if you’d heard, but I also have a blog where I’ve written about it a lot. But talking extemporaneously about it to a group is going to be a new experience. I don’t really understand stage fright, so that’s not an issue. How do I keep them engaged, though? How do I not bore everyone away? [Read more…] about What Should You Talk About at a Book Festival?

Flipping Tropes on their Heads

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SONY DSC

Walking out of the movie “War Dogs” last weekend — It’s an entertaining film, for what it’s worth — I kept thinking about how tired I am of the “Concerned wife/girlfriend who exists only to nag her busy, adventurous husband about how dangerous his job is, and to cry about getting lied to” character tropes. You’ve all seen the movie/read the book.

He’s the protagonist. He does all kinds of interesting things, driving the action. She’s sitting at home, probably taking care of the kid. He lies “to protect her.” Eventually, she realizes it and walks about, typically taking the kid to her mom’s house. He begs and pleads. She considers changing her mind, but she leaves. [Read more…] about Flipping Tropes on their Heads

What’s the Hardest Part of Writing a Novel?

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Mountain

Not much of this whole “writing a book” thing is easy. That’s particularly true if you’re looking to get it published. And sell the damn thing. And even more so if nobody knows who the hell you are, except for your mom, and even she’s not sure all the time. Talk about a mountain to climb, from the first tiny, uncertain steps of just coming up with the kernel of an idea to outlining, storyboarding, deciding on a structure, figuring out who the characters are, writing the first chapter, driving through the parts you think suck, finally finishing a draft, then realizing your work has only barely begun. The hardest part is tough to nail down.

There are plenty of points at which your average person drops out of this particular climb. Lots of opportunities to say “Screw this” and turn on Netflix. I have no doubt that the vast majority of people who talk about writing a novel never start, just as the vast majority of people who start a novel never finish, and most of those who finish a novel don’t sell enough to even make up for their costs, much less make anything approaching a “living.” [Read more…] about What’s the Hardest Part of Writing a Novel?

New Books By Nobodies Don’t Sell Jack

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Sell

In the week since “Killing the Immortals” was released, I’ve been asked dozens of times by numerous people, “So, how are sales going?” These people generally mean well and are just trying to engage with me on the subject of the book, but the answer for pretty much all brand-new authors who have no real platform to sell from and are completely unknown outside a fairly small set of friends, family and acquaintances: “Predictably slowly.” I tend to tell people they’re “trickling in.” That’s pretty much right. It’s also pretty much exactly what I anticipated. There’s a reason new indie authors don’t just quit their day jobs once their book is out. Like any other small business, it takes a long time (and a good bit of luck) to build a following and a foundation for success. I’m a long way from that.

I don’t mind when people ask that. I’ve yet to punch anyone who did so, in fact. I make no promises, but it’s likely I won’t. But, in the interest of addressing the question, I thought I’d take a look at that in this post. Full disclosure and all. One of the things I never could find as I researched the business of publishing was an idea of reasonable expectations. This won’t solve that completely, but maybe it will help a bit. It’s a sample size of one, though, so bring your grain of salt with you. Here we go … [Read more…] about New Books By Nobodies Don’t Sell Jack

5 Lessons from a First-Time Author

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Lessons 3

Writing your first novel is, in many ways, a grueling experience. Some of it, I wasn’t entirely prepared for. A lot of it, I definitely didn’t see coming. Through the process, I learned I was well suited and trained for much of it, and not really ready at all for some of it.

I started writing on the morning of Dec. 19, and it took me right at six weeks to write about 85,000 words. From there, it took me six months to edit it and get it to where I felt like it didn’t suck, and could go out into the world. Sometimes, I got frustrated. Other times, I was excited. Almost all the time, I wanted it to be over, and be where I am today, with a brand new novel sitting on Amazon’s virtual shelves and several positive reviews alongside it.

Here are five key lessons I’ve learned from going through this process. If you ever think about writing a book of your own, hopefully you can learn from the stupid things I did, and do fewer stupid things yourself. [Read more…] about 5 Lessons from a First-Time Author