The Top Five Authors Who Influenced Me

Greetings all,

Image from Pixabay.

Whenever I’m struggling to think of things to write in this blog, there’s always a top five list I can do. This time, I thought it’d be fun to share the top five authors who’ve influenced my work.

#5) Stephen King: I’m of two minds here. This is in no way an endorsement of his content. Quite frankly some of his books go to places I’d never want to visit nor would invite others to go. But I’d be lying if I denied his influence on me. This is because of his book On Writing. That book is, in my opinion, the greatest call to action book an author could have. King’s book taught me about the momentum of writing and the importance of consistent reading. It was his book that led me to start writing every night, and ultimately led to the completion of my first (and therefore all) subsequent books.

#4) James Patterson: This may seem a bit odd since I so rarely mention him or his work, but it’s undeniable. I had been a huge fan of the Women’s Murder Club series before I think Book 11, which I feel drastically hindered the main character in the series. However, the pacing of his stories stuck with me, which is why I endeavor to have quick, hard-hitting chapters through the bulk of any of my books.

This image of Dean Koontz was taken from his Amazon author page so I can say what an impact he’s had on my writing. Please don’t sue me.

#3) Dean Koontz: I pretty much read a ton of Dean Koontz, and I love Odd Thomas. If someone were to make the accusation of Bob Drifter was only a little more than an Odd Thomas ripoff, I’d probably just thank them. Dean as cleverly adorable dialogue and charming characters. From him I learned how powerful a sympathetic character was.

#2) Robert Jordan: The Wheel of Time is my second favorite series of all time. One day, I hope people are theorizing about my books the same way that my brother and I spent hours talking about certain aspects of the Prophecies of the Dragon. I’m still trying to diagnose and understand how he worked his worldbuilding and foreshadowing to such a refined degree. I’ve tried it a few times (and maybe not in the stories you think), but I think I have some more to learn before I can make a true attempt (though that’s coming.)

Honorable Mentions: So obviously if Dragon Riders of Pern is my favorite series of all time, Anne McCaffrey would be high on my list, and if this were a list of my favorite authors of all time, she’d be on it. However, what she did best (her worldbuilding) is something I aspire to, but it’s just not a skill I think I have at the moment. Also, Leo Tolstoy is among my favorite authors. I don’t know if I can call him my favorite anymore, but he holds a special place in my heart. However, like McCaffrey, as much as I love his writing, I just don’t know that he impacted my writing as much as those on this list.

This image of Brandon Sanderson was taken from his website.

#1) Brandon Sanderson: This certainly hasn’t been a secret I’ve kept, though I’m not certain I’ve proclaimed this as overtly as I am here. No author or person has inspired me or impacted me more on any level. Write About Dragons is pretty much the foundation on which I built my workflow as an author. Writing Excuses gave the discovery writer in me focus. I honestly wish I had (or took the time) to listen to it. But if I’m listening to anything, it’s probably an audio book. It was Brandon of encouraged me (personally during an event) to put my work out there even if I had to do so by self publishing. I’ve met him a few times, and I don’t know that he’ll ever truly understand just how wonderful and motivating he’s been in my life as an author and a fan of fiction. Top that off with his prolific determination, and it’s easy to call him the most impactful author to my career.

So there you have it. If you’re a writer, how does my list compare to yours?

Thanks for reading,

Matt

Examples of Good Book Qualities

Whenever I do a review, those familiar with my blog know that I have a very consistent approach because I know what I like in stories, and I evaluate stories by what I like. I think the more someone works to understand what they like, they’re more likely to find books they enjoy and (if they aspire to be an author) write books they will enjoy.

What I decided to do today is provide examples on what books did particularly well in various categories.

Image of this book’s cover was taken from its Amazon buy page for review purposes under Fair Use doctrine.

Character:  The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. I chose this specifically because of how divisive this book is in my opinion. I love it. I know people who hate it.  The love and hate of this book is based entirely on how people feel about Kvothe. I think Kvothe is a brilliant character. He’s sympathetic, proactive, and highly competent. Now this is actually why a lot of people don’t like the book. He’s too perfect. I don’t think he’s a Mary Sue, but some do. Still the point is, this book hangs it hat on the main character.

Exposition: Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson.  Every book needs exposition. Sooner or later, the author has to just tell the reader what’s going on. The trick is to make sure that writers show everything they can and lace the exposition through the story. Mistborn has an incredibly complex magic system, and the world it happens in has a deep history. This book never once beats up the reader with complicated blocks of exposition. There is one “education” scene, where Vin learns the basics of allomancy, but other than that, the book weaves what we need throughout the action.

Worldbuilding: The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan. If you’re wondering, yes, it was very hard to not include Sanderson here as well, but Eye of the World is another example. Great stories typically have worlds that feel real. Eye of the World establishes so much with culture, the magic system, the mythos, and the setting. It’s truly masterful worldbuilding, but it’s not just worldbuilding for the sake of worldbuilding. There are books I feel that take worldbuilding too far. I don’t want to spend my life reading about the economic value of a whosit. This book balances intricate worldbuilding with the story to make the scene and universe believable.

Dialogue: Brother Odd by Dean Koontz.  I’ve always been a fan of the dialogue in Koontz’s books, but I think this book is a text book for how dialogue is done. The conversations in this book are crisp and relevant, and each character has a distinct voice. Also, it’s a pretty amazing book.

Image of the book’s cover was taken from the book’s Amazon buy page for review purposes under Fair Use doctrine.

Description: Betrayer’s Bane by Michael G. Manning. Honestly, I’m so finicky with description, this is hard for me. I think Timothy Zahn should also get some credit here, but Manning came to mind first, so here it is. This book has a lot of action and a lot of dramatic scenes. Manning artfully places strategic adjectives that bring a story to life without beating the reader to death with huge paragraphs of description.

There are many books that do many of these well. I don’t know that I can truly place a book here that does all of them well. I think a good book only has to do a majority of these well. I’ll even go so far as to say that, for me personally, I just need good character and low exposition, and I’ll probably like it. The point is, the more of these a writer pays attention to, the better the book will be.

Thanks for reading,

Matt

 

 

Happy Birthday Bob! Free Stuff!

Greetings all,

Just as I did with Caught and it’s birthday giveaway, I’m celebrating Bob’s fourth birthday! (WOW! I’ve been a published author for four years!?)

So, The Journals of Bob Drifter will is free March 1-4 (11:59 p.m. PST).

I’d be thrilled if any of you give the book a try and perhaps recommend it to the readers you know. I think fans of Dean Koontz (especially Odd Thomas) would appreciate this book.  When I pitch this book at conventions, I call it Dead Like Me meets Supernatural.  I still think it has some of the best characters I’ve created in it. It has great depth, but those are all my opinions. Still, no one has ever called me out on them.

Again, what I’m attempting to do is generate reviews. If you’ve already read it, I’d be ever so grateful if you consider giving it a rating and review on Amazon, Goodreads or both.

You can grab your free Kindle version of the book here or the link above where I first give the title.

Now, as if that’s not enough, I have more good news. The Audible version of Repressed is officially live. Like with my other titles, I have 25 free versions of that title ready for any who are interested. So if you like YA stories, this might be for you. It is indeed a part of the Oneiros Log cannon, but it’s not nearly as dark as Caught was. If you’d like a copy, please email me.

It seems more and more hard to believe how far I’ve come in the last four years. I’m about to release yet another title (more on that next week), and I’m working hard on Hazel and Betrayed. I thank God for this gift he’s given. I love this craft so much, and I can’t wait to see where the dream takes me through the next four years.

Thanks for reading,

Matt

What Box Does This Fit In? The Importance of Putting Your Book in the Right Category

This screenshot was captured Feb. 3, about 6 days after Caught was released.

As I type this, Caught is still a long ways away (a month actually).  I recently read (and reviewed) How to Market a Book by Joanna Penn. One of her chapters spoke about categories and their importance, and that made me want to share with you some things I did differently this time around.

 

What I did wrong: I’m in love with my genre, and I (obviously) know The Journals of Bob Drifter better than anyone. I understand the magic system and the other three books (two written) that are related to it, but none of that matters. I didn’t see it, because I was trying to fit Bob and my work to where I want to be one day. I threw it in the Urban Fantasy category. It simply doesn’t belong there.

What I fixed: Well, the trick here (thanks to Joanna’s book) that worked was to think about Caught in terms of books that are related. What books does Caught feel like? What authors produce work that is similar to what this book does?

This screen shot (taken Feb. 3) shows the various categories The Strain is in. Notice how well it’s doing in all categories related to Vampires?

The first book that came to mind was The Strain by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan.  That book’s primary category is Mystery, Thriller & Suspense. Down that rabbit hole of categories is a sub category called Supernatural > Vampires.  A few clicks down Amazon’s categories, and there for the taking was my category (there’re some spoilers in that area, but it’s there).  Bob is a Supernatural thriller as well.

 

(NOTE: The real trick is getting the book to register on those deeper categories.  For instance, The Strain is also in General Fiction > Horror.  Caught is in a few other categories as well, which increases visibility. That’s great, but I still focus on the category I know is best.)

But I didn’t just DIVE after the Supernatural category. I did some more searching around. I came up with a list of books and authors that all line up with Caught. I feel the readers who enjoy these books or authors will like Caught.

Night Chills by Dean Koontz

The Shining by Stephen King

Not all the stuff I looked up fell in this category, but many of them did.

Bob isn’t doing so well in this category. Is it a bad book? (Screenshot taken Feb. 3)

I can shove my book into the Fantasy category if I want. But Caught isn’t Fantasy. It isn’t by any stretch of the imagination. Sure, I know Bob has a magic system. Eventually, you’ll see more of that magic (and even a monster), but even when I publish 1,200, a clever reader would have to look closely to see the connection between that book and Bob.

 

The lesson. Put your ego in a trunk, and throw it off the deck of a ship. I’m an author. I worked long and hard, sacrificed, and spent thousands of dollars on editors, but the PUBLISHING of that work, the MARKETING of it is about the CUSTOMER. Readers have the right to know that the book they purchase isn’t one they

No. It gets good reviews, but it has no visibility because the people who will enjoy it can’t see it. (Screenshot taken Feb. 3) 

“might” like, but one you know they’ll love. Man was it hard to look myself in the mirror and tell myself that. ESPECIALLY while I’m getting ready to revise Sojourn in Despair. But that’s the right call.

 

Put your work in front of the small, specific audience you know will like your book. Some writers avoid this out of pride (abashedly raises hand). Other avoid it because they’re afraid. They want their book in front of millions of eyes.

People, I see dog poop on the road every day. Seeing it doesn’t make me want to pick it up.

This image and the Feature Image were taken from Pixabay.

Your book (my book) isn’t dog poop, but it might as well be if you throw it on the busiest street (metaphorically) you can find. Because those people (metaphorically) are going somewhere. They’re looking for something specific. Put your book where YOUR readers are going.

If your sales are low. Ask yourself if you’re putting the book in front of the right readers. Try changing the category. I promise, you’re not going to sell fewer books.

For example, my category for Caught has 1,120 books. I’d rather go up against 1,000 books than the 293,452 in the broader category. J.R. (I believe he passed it along to me, but he’s the guy who told it to me) said be the big fish in the little pond. It took me a minute to find my pond. This is what worked for me.

When I shift Bob over to the right category, I’ll let you know how it affected sales and reviews.

Thanks for reading,

Matt

Marketing Journal: Goodreads Campaign

I’ve made no bones about the fact that marketing is something I don’t understand.  Oh, I have as much economics training as the next Associates Degree holder, but to be honest, I only know enough to know I don’t know what I’m doing.

My idea is to create a marketing journal.  I’ll track what I try and how it works.  Then I realized others might be interested in seeing what I’m doing.  Maybe they know how to do it better and will help a guy out, or maybe they’re like I am, and this will help them at least be as successful as I’ve been.

This is my first entry under this Marketing Journal tag, and I don’t know how often or regularly I’ll post these.  Most marketing campaigns have some sort of cost associated with it, and money just isn’t a thing I have.

I noticed Goodreads has started an add campaign system a while ago, so I thought I’d give it a try.

How it works:  Well, if I can figure it out, it’s pretty easy.  You start by clicking here.  It’s the summary and description of how it works in general.

Like I said, advertising usually costs money.  For this campaign, I set a limit of $50.  For anyone smarter than me:  is it completely unreasonable to think the money you invest in campaigning should at least result in the same amount earned in sales?  What’s the ration of profits earned against advertising dollars?  For me, I would consider this a gain if I simply get 50 people to add my book to their TBR lists.  I’d be ecstatic if I sold 50 copies of my book.  But I need to be told if that’s just a pipe dream.

I have a daily cap set at $5 a day.  That cap is based on my Cost Per Click.  I established my Cost Per Click originally at $0.5.  So when I started, if 10 people clicked my link, I wouldn’t get any more clicks, but I wouldn’t lose any more money from my budget.  I’m not sure how big a deal that is to be honest.  My whole campaign is built to end when the $50 I invested runs out, so weather that runs out in a day or a month, I’m not concerned either way.

This is my actual chart that tracks views for the month of September.  All the following images are from my dashboard showing my progress.

Now we come to the part I think might be of interest to those like me.  I set up my add to target women who like a group of genres.  I was very broad, basically clicking any genre my book comes anywhere near to fitting in.  The first day I had 70 views.  The second day I had 73 views.  I didn’t have anyone click my link.  I’ve mentioned before that interaction matters to me.  So I changed it up.  I shifted so the campaign only targeted men.

I’m a man.  I wrote a book I liked.  I wrote a book my best friend and brother in law might like.  But when I looked at Goodreads and Amazon, I realized that the BULK of my sales and 5-Star Reviews were, in fact, from women.  That’s why I chose women first. Watch this:  When I shifted from women to men, my views plummeted from 73 to 22.  I can say I wrote this book for whoever I want, but the fact is, women are more interested in my book than men. I shifted the campaign back to women the next day and ended with 100 views.  After four days, I had 165 views, but no clicks.  Time to switch it up.

Goodreads also has a feature that allows you to target people who rated a group of Authors.  So if I select authors I think my book is like, anyone who gave all of those authors 3 or more stars will see my add.   This is awesome.  I chose Dean Koontz, Christopher Golden, Mike Molina, James Patterson and Dan Wells.

I had 23 views.

My theory is that the list of authors I gave is very broad.  Only two come any where near each other, and even that is a stretch.  So if only a small percentage of people read that combination, it reduces my reach.  Now, this would have been fine if those 23 views also mean 23 clicks, but it didn’t.  In the interest of science, I switched it from women who liked those authors to men.  Again, I dropped to 16.  Still no clicks.

So I changed my approach.  I switched my audience to women again.  Then I went back to genres.  This time, I reduced the number of genres to those I felt BEST represented Bob.  I chose Ebooks, Fantasy, Fiction, Horror, Paranormal, and Thriller.

In one day, I received 3,562 views.  I  also received 3 clicks.  Two people added me to their TBR lists.  The next day I received 3,362 views and one click.  I was very happy with the views and the clicks were improving.

The help section in Goodreads recommends if you want to increase your click through percentage (CTR) (percent of people who click your link from those who view your add) to change the add summary.  At this point, my add was an image of the cover with the following:  “Dead Like Me meets Supernatural.  A story about life from the perspective of those who watch over the dying.”  In an effort to increase that CTR, I changed it to, “Dead Like Me meets Supernatural.  A substitute teacher must collect the souls of the dying.  How does one live, when his real job is death?”

Whenever you change your ad, it takes a few days for Goodreads to approve your ad.  So my ad shut down for a few days until it was approved.  When it came back up, I received 2,720 views, but no clicks.  I’m going to let this campaign run for a few more days with these settings.  If I don’t get back above 3,000 views, or I don’t get any clicks, I’ll go back to the original add and see if those numbers climb back up.

That’s where I’m at right now.  I’ve had 10,040 views and 4 clicks for a CTR of .04%.  (Goodreads says the results span from .05-.5, so if I can get to .25, I’ll call that a solid first time average).

I hope this helps those trying to figure out ways to reach viewers.  Of all the campaigns I’ve tried outside of conventions, this is one I feel best about because I already know I’m getting my add in front of interested readers.  That’s priceless to me.  Facebook and Twitter adds can be refined to interests, but people are finicky.  I would not call someone who likes Harry Potter  a fan of Fantasy.  The reading of one book doesn’t make you a fan of genre.  I’ve read two romance novels.  I hate romance.  I actually liked one of those books.  I read it because I wanted to learn from the structure and style.   Any genre is the same really in that regard.  BUT, to be able to target readers who like those genres or the authors those book match is awesome!  I’ll keep you all posted in how this goes.

Until then, thanks for reading,

Matt