Category Archives: Writing

Books, Writing

Lost & Found in Como Park

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Como ParkHere’s proof that I’m crazy.

Earlier this week I announced Open Our Eyes: Seeing the Invisible People of Homelessness, my project to support Mark Horvath and InvisiblePeople.tv. It launches November 9. Last night I launched a Kickstarter campaign to publish this year’s National Novel Writing Month effort, Lost & Found in Como Park.

As if my life wasn’t crazy enough.

So here’s the deal: I love Como Park. It’s this great park we have in St. Paul. It’s got a free zoo and the conservatory and trails and statues. It’s more than 100 years old, so there’s history everywhere you look. It’s great place to take your family.

I’ve decided to set this year’s NaNoWriMo story in Como Park. I want to use the locale and the history—and more than that, I want to bridge fiction and reality. I want to place a memorial brick in Como Park for a fictional character from the book. It’s a celebration of Como Park and a way to make the story real.

So if we can hit the $1,000-goal then we’ll publish the book and put a brick in Como Park and make this thing happen. Kickstarter works on pledges, so if we don’t hit the goal, you don’t have to pay. I’ll write the book either way, but publishing the book and placing the brick are dependent on getting enough pledges. If we go past the goal we can make the book better.

There are all kinds of rewards for making a pledge and backing the project. I tried to make them low cost and high fun—so you’re getting a deal, not being charged a premium. For $10 you can get a copy of the book (I won’t be able to sell it that cheap, so you’re getting a deal). We’re also giving away a bunch of Como Park souvenirs that I’m going to work into the story. You can also be written into the story. Or you can get a personal tour of Como Park. Lots of fun stuff.

I’m hoping this will serve as some extra incentive while I’m writing the novel and a fun way to share the story and Como Park with all of you.

Or, I’m just crazy.

The novel writing starts on Monday. You’ve got until the end of November to pledge. Want to join me?

Writing

NaNoWriMo is Coming

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November is National Novel Writing Month. I participated (and won!) in 2004, 2006 and 2008. If you noticed a pattern, then yes, I do it every even-numbered year and that means doing it again in 2010.

For the un-initiated, this means writing a 50,000-word novel in 30 days. That’s 1,667 words per day. It’s a lot of work and the results can be pretty messy, but you end up with a novel. That’s cool. It’s about forcing yourself through the process and arriving somewhere at the end. It’s not about creating a perfectly polished product. It’s about diving in with a crazy but do-able plan and making it happen. Sometimes I think about applying the NaNoWriMo approach to other ventures.

Just like last time, I have no idea what I’m going to write. Not having an idea to percolate in the back of my head throughout October made things harder last time, so I hope I come up with something soon. Unfortunately, I keep catching myself coming up with weird ideas. Like exploring some strange new kind of storytelling (that kind of experimentation probably isn’t a good idea when you need to be cranking out 1,667 words every day like a writing machine) or turning this into yet another fundraiser (part of me thinks writing a novel when I should be paying the bills is foolish).

So we’ll see where NaNoWriMo 2010 takes us.

Business & Marketing, Writing

Promotion or Obscurity

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I’m struggling right now with how hard to promote my book, Addition by Adoption. Or at least I would be if I weren’t so busy. With another adoption (an 11-year-old, no less!), another book project and the end of summer, I’m not sure my life has reached this level of busy before. So the book kind of gets forgotten.

And that’s the struggle. Do I let it slide into obscurity or do I work even harder to promote it, keep it on the forefront of people’s thoughts and sell a few more copies? Or is it already in obscurity and I should just give up now? Or is all that promotion just annoying?

I worked relentlessly in April and May to promote this book and get it out there and the response was pretty incredible. The sales for a self-published book were spectacular. Of course spectacular sales of a self-published book don’t account for much.  When I look at my expenses the book hasn’t even broken even yet (let’s not even talk about the time involved). And we still need to raise $3,000 to build that well in Ethiopia.

Publishing is a harsh mistress.

Of course for all that promotion there are still people who have no idea I published a book, let alone a ground-breaking book of tweets. Nevermind a book exploring adoption. There are still people who said they’d do some kind of promotion and never did. There are still people who said they’d buy a copy and never did. Sometimes people need to be reminded again and again and again. And sometimes that just gets old.

So I guess we’ll see what happens. This post serves as a handy (and lame) bit of further promotion. So don’t forget that we still have ‘Awesome Editions’ of the book available ($12 goes to charity: water!) and you can always buy it on Amazon.

Business & Marketing, Writing

Seth Godin Gives Up On Traditional Publishing

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Marketing guru Seth Godin is giving up on traditional publishing, according to a teaser to an upcoming interview. We’ll let Godin explain it himself:

“I’ve decided not to publish any more books in the traditional way. 12 for 12 and I’m done. I like the people, but I can’t abide the long wait, the filters, the big push at launch, the nudging to get people to go to a store they don’t usually visit to buy something they don’t usually buy, to get them to pay for an idea in a form that’s hard to spread … I really don’t think the process is worth the effort that it now takes to make it work. I can reach 10 or 50 times as many people electronically. No, it’s not ‘better’, but it’s different. So while I’m not sure what format my writing will take, I’m not planning on it being the 1907 version of hardcover publishing any longer.”

On one hand I think this is kind of funny. Poor Seth Godin, it’s so much work to sell those books. There aren’t that many authors who have an easier time selling books than Seth Godin. He could publish a book of blank pages and it’d top the business best seller list.

On the other hand, I see where he’s coming from. One year from author’s brain to bookstore shelf would be considered lightning fast in the publishing industry. The emphasis on making a big splash can be pretty overwhelming. And if you can spread your ideas in other formats (assuming spreading your ideas is all you’re after), why not go for it?

The reality here is that Godin can do whatever he wants. He can sell hardcover 1907 books if he wants, and he could just as easily sell digital 2010 books. If speed is his concern he could write up a manuscript and have it on Kindle in mere days. He could even have a hardcopy version available on Amazon in about a week. It’s not hard (I’ve done it).

Books, Writing

Keeping Book Sales in Perspective

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So my book, Addition by Adoption, officially released on Amazon last week. And so I began my fixation with Amazon’s sales rank, something I imagine most authors go through (whether or not they admit it).

Before the May 11 release date the book’s Amazon sales rank was in the 500,000 range. Not too shabby, considering the millions of books that are published, right? Then on Tuesday the popularity surge began. It zoomed into the top 100,000, eventually settling as high as 55,721. It did end up at #35 in the adoption category.

Whoa. I know, right?

I assumed my book must be selling like hotcakes. Wow. All my hard work trying to spread the word about this thing (i.e., being annoying) must be paying off.

Not quite. Turns out the Amazon sales rank doesn’t mean as much as you might think. Depending on what you read and who you believe, cracking the top 100,000 might mean you’ve sold a single copy lately. Cracking the top 10,000 might mean you’ve sold a dozen copies. The top 1,000 might mean 50 copies.

It’s all relative. It’s all fluctuating. It’s all meaningless.

Just as quickly as my book surged, it also flopped. Today we’re sitting at 483,172. Total monthly sales to date? Seven. I don’t know what ‘selling like hotcakes’ actually means, but I’m pretty sure it’s more than seven.

Continue reading Keeping Book Sales in Perspective →

Writing

Finding My Novels a Home

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I’ve been thinking about novel writing lately. You can blame Jonathan Blundell and the little video chat we did a few days ago about my post-apocalyptic sci-fi novel, Least of These. You see, I’ve written three novels. Two have been self-published as rough drafts and one has seen a few re-writes and I’m wondering what to do with it.

Last night I pulled out my non-sci-fi novels and started reading through the first chapters. I liked what I read. I saw a few things here and there to improve (I’ll probably always feel that way), but I didn’t have that impending sense of way too much work to do to find anything salvageable. I enjoyed what I read, perhaps out of nostalgia for my own creation, but I also thought it was pretty good.

But the question I kept coming back to is what do I do with these novels?

Continue reading Finding My Novels a Home →

Books, Writing

Least of These Video Chat

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You may remember that I recently published a book. It’s a little sci-fi post-apocalyptic novel called Least of These with a killer cover (you can download a free copy or buy the paperback for $9.99).

Yesterday I sat down and did a little video chat about the book with one of my readers, Jonathan Blundell (my one reader?). Jonathan has been very supportive of my work (and I’m supportive of his work) and it was fun to talk over some of the ideas in the book and how the book came together.

So if you’re looking for the inside scoop on Least of These—how inspiration came from U2 and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, how my wife refuses to read it, my take on standard post-apocalyptic plot lines, why it has such an awesome cover—check out the video chat. I even do a little impromptu reading.

For a special bonus, count how many times I say ‘um.’

Get your copy of Least of These now.

Books, Writing

Reading a Chapter from My Book

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There I am, sitting in my grandmother’s rocking chair reading the first chapter from my novel, Least of These. It’s kind of like attending an author reading at your favorite bookstore, except you can be in your house and I can be in my house and nobody pays  me to record audiobooks for a reason. But it’s still pretty cool.

Watch the video.

You can buy a copy from Amazon if you like. A few friends have also created e-versions from the free PDF (iPhone and ePub, I think), but I haven’t gotten around to posting them. If you’re clamoring for those, hit me up in the comments I’ll stop procrastinating.

And for the record, I noticed one error and a handful of corrections I wanted to make after reading the first chapter outloud four or five times. I told you it was a rough draft.

Books, Writing

I’ve Got a New Book: Least of These

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Author Kevin D. Hendricks with his published creation, Least of TheseMy post-apocalyptic sci-fi novel Least of These is now published and widely available (the e-mail newsletter subscribers got the early word last night: subscribe now to be in the know). So much to talk about, I don’t even know where to begin.

What’s post-apocalyptic sci-fi? Think Mad Max’s Road Warrior. It’s the genre I go on and on about all the time. The world has barely survived some apocalypse (duh) and the survivors try to piece together an existence in the aftermath. There are usually recurring themes of boiling life down to its simplest elements, both in day to day survival and in bigger picture terms.

What is Least of These like? It might be comparable to the recent Denzel Washington flick The Book of Eli. Sort of. Mine has some action, some stock villains, a heroic female. But no iPods, swinging machetes (but arrows!) or utter desolation (or Denzel). I wrote Least of These in 2008 as a part of National Novel Writing Month. It’s been very lightly edited and published as a rough draft (hence the lame-o cover). It’s not deep literature, but hopefully it’s good for a rainy afternoon bit of fun (do people still consider reading fun?).

Why is the Internet so cool? Because I published this thing in three days. I got the idea on Tuesday. I went through the manuscript and made minor proofing edits (and missed loads, I’m sure), I did the layout in Microsoft Word, slaved over the cover in Photoshop and by Thursday was uploading a PDF file to CreateSpace. Three days. On Friday I ordered my proof copy. It arrived on Tuesday. You could buy a copy online that night. It was up on Amazon about a week later. Of course it helped that I had a manuscript lying around and had already read through it making editing notes. Go Internet. It’s a cool time to be creating stuff.

Why does the cover suck? Remember ‘published in three days’? Yeah, I have lots of friends who could design something better. Heck, Lexi could design something better (brainstorm!). But I wanted to crank it out quickly. Plus there’s that whole rough draft thing. It seemed disingenuous to put a lot of effort into the cover when I haven’t put a lot of effort into the editing (except for the last time I did that). It’s a rough draft, all the way around. I kind of like the idea of publishing rough draft versions like this. Get it out there, quick and dirty.

Where can I get a copy? You can score yourself a print copy of Least of These for only $9.99 or download the free PDF if you want to take it for a test read. For the record, I get a bigger royalty if you buy through CreateSpace. But buying through Amazon is pretty swell, too, since you can use your shipping deals and throw my book in with your regular shopping.

So there you have it. I had hoped to announce this a week ago, but that’s how things go.

Writing

Share Your Story Now

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“Don’t wait for your story to be done before you share it.”

I came across this quote from Jon Acuff (the guy behind Stuff Christians Like) in a discussion on blogging from the Catalyst Conference.

Here’s the quote in context:

Writing is just about writing. Perfectionism says it needs to be perfect, which is crazy. Your story is like your life… it is not done. Don’t wait for it to be done before you share it. Often you audience helps guide your story.

What I love about this is the acknowledgement that we all have stories to share. Our lives are journeys and the story isn’t the end of the road, it’s how we get there. Which means we don’t have to wait until we’re old and gray to have something valuable to say.

Continue reading Share Your Story Now →