Independent author
Last weekend, I patted my next novel “Separation” on the butt and sent it out into a little slice of the world, letting my beta readers explore the town of Alessandra and its various characters. Hopefully, they’ll enjoy the read, and won’t ultimately tell me to toss my computer in a fire and start over from the beginning. [Read more…] about How to Write a Beta Reader Checklist
For those of you who missed me at the Decatur Book Festival, you’ve got another chance to catch my book-readin’ self out in the wild very soon. Next week, I’ll be reading an excerpt from “Killing the Immortals” at the Snug Gastro Pub in Canton for the “A Novel Idea” event on Wednesday, Oct. 19.
The theme for the event is “scary stories,” and I’ll be joined by other local authors Lee Gimenez, Alex Hughes, Lynn Hesse, Frank Reddy, and Marsha Cornelius. I won’t be able to get up there until 7:30 or so, and I’ll probably be speaking around 8. I’ll bring some bookmarks, and I’ll probably read Chapter 1 because I think it’s a great introduction to the book. [Read more…] about Speaking at A Novel Idea in Canton
Welcome to the new jeffhaws.com! Hope you’re liking what you see so far. It’s a pretty big change from the old site, for those of you who enjoyed wandering around there. This layout should give you a much better visual experience than the previous one, and this site should also be more secure. Gone is the “Just Write Somehow” header (which I thought was more to the point when I was working toward getting a book out than it is now that I have one … and will soon have another), and the focus is more on my published work. [Read more…] about Cover Reveal and Other Updates
For those of you who have been to the Decatur Book Festival, you know it’s basically Shangri-La for book lovers. It’s one of the best such festivals in the country, and it’s arguably the best when it comes to giving young and self-published authors a chance to get exposure for their work.
On that note, I’d like to announce that I’ll be speaking at this year’s festival, in the Emerging Writers tent, and I’ll also be doing a book signing for “Killing the Immortals,” my first novel. My speaking/signing spots will be either Sept. 3 or 4. I’ll provide an update on that when I know more, but I got it fairly early, so hopefully it’ll come that Saturday morning. I’m not going to be picky, though. [Read more…] about Speaking at the Decatur Book Festival
After finishing up the rough draft of my first story, “Killing the Immortals,” a few weeks ago, I needed to kill some time while I got a bit of space from it. If you can help it, you never want to edit something you just wrote. It’s hard to catch all your stupid mistakes when you’re that close to it.
But I didn’t want to just sit here watching Netflix while it collected a bit of dust. So I immediately dove into writing a shorter piece that I could put in my bank for doing something with later. The working title for it is “Tomorrow’s News Today,” and it’s about a journalist who accidentally discovers that anything he writes will happen exactly as he wrote it. If someone compared it to a Twilight Zone episode, I’d be pretty damn pleased. Hell, let’s be honest, I’ll be happy if anyone is just willing to read it, especially if they pay to do so. But I’d definitely love to have people see a little Rod Serling there.
What I’ll do with it, I’m not quite sure. There are a few options: 1) Release it as a stand-alone work, probably charging $1.99 or $2.99 as a regular list price; 2) Keep writing these shorter pieces and package 4-5 of them into a collection that I release as a novel-length book that sells for $4.99 or so; 3) Keep it in my back pocket for potential entry into a contest or submission to go into an anthology when a publisher is looking for stories; 4) Give it away for free on my site, potentially for people to sign up for an email list I’ll be building soon. And, keep in mind, these aren’t mutually exclusive. I could, over time, do all four if I choose.
In the meantime, here’s a little tease to the story. Below, you can read the first few paragraphs of the rough draft, so you can get a look at the beginning, and the mood of the story: [Read more…] about My Next Short(er) Story