Casey Glanders's Blog
February 11, 2015
Comic Con
I will be speaking on Friday, March 13th at the Indianapolis Comic Con. My editing team and I have a panel and everything. It's pretty sweet. Here's the info from their site:
2:00pm – 2:50pm
WRITING WORLDS: WRITING AND PUBLISHING SUPERHERO FICTION (Rm. 133)
Come discuss the writing process with Casey Glanders, author of the critically acclaimed Gailsone series. Discuss the do’s and don’ts of writing, working with story lines, keeping your audience interested, and more.
I personally love the "Critically Acclaimed" part.
2:00pm – 2:50pm
WRITING WORLDS: WRITING AND PUBLISHING SUPERHERO FICTION (Rm. 133)
Come discuss the writing process with Casey Glanders, author of the critically acclaimed Gailsone series. Discuss the do’s and don’ts of writing, working with story lines, keeping your audience interested, and more.
I personally love the "Critically Acclaimed" part.
February 9, 2015
Comic Con Indianapolis
FYI, I will have a panel at Indiana Comic Con on 3/13/2015 to discuss writing superhero fiction. Everyone is welcome to attend!
November 20, 2014
Covers
So, I do my own covers. I did them for Gailsone, for my Owning Office series (check it out. I do tech manuals in my spare time), and for my horror books as well as some...other projects. I do other projects that are not officially associated with me. For reasons.
Anyway.
Covers can actually be harder to come up with than the story they're selling. You need a graphic that properly conveys the interior while still being eye-catching. Also, you need to look at least somewhat professional.
The cover to Big in Japan took me three weeks to settle on and get just right. I probably blew $50 on images and spent 20 hours in Photoshop before I had things arranged just-so. And it's hard, and sometimes it just doesn't come out the way you want. This one did. Others did not (I'm looking at you, Paint the Town Red.)
My favorite cover has been for the Impossible Door. I spent a lot of time hunting for the right block of images and went through about six variations before I put together the dragon eye with the green flame. I love that one, and I have it in a lovely poster format along with some others in my office.
What gets me is yes, covers are hard, but good Lord, they shouldn't be $1,000 hard. Once I started writing, I received a ton of offers from companies to do my covers, starting at the low price of $500 and going up into the thousands. Some artists I approached wouldn't touch anything for under several thousand. Now, with artists, I get it. That's a lot of time and effort, and the project could potentially exceed the money provided. However, I've seen what some of these other "services" offer, and it's the same thing I'm doing in the evening at the kitchen table, if that.
Yes, it can stink to do, and yes, I'll admit I have an unfair advantage. I was an Adobe instructor for eight years. I know my way around the Creative Suite. Still, Even knowing the technical aspects behind merging images, doing adjustments and clean-up, working with fonts, and adjusting title text, the brunt of these covers only took about three to four hours, and that's only because I couldn't find a decent image to work with.
Yes, your cover is important, and yes, you get what you pay for, but paying $1,000 as an independent publisher is just insane to me. The cover alone is NOT what is going to get you consistent sales. Marketing, using social media, and working your buns off is what brings exposure and sales.
Example: There's another author in the hero genre who released a superhero book featuring a woman removing a coat to reveal a lack of clothing underneath. The reviews on the book were all low, and all stressed the same thing- the cover had nothing to do with the interior of the book. While this probably gave him a spike in sales out of the gate, this kind of exposure can hurt long-term sales.
Your cover is important, but don't let your love for your book be an excuse for some jerk to take you for a ride that may cost you thousands and not deliver.
Anyway.
Covers can actually be harder to come up with than the story they're selling. You need a graphic that properly conveys the interior while still being eye-catching. Also, you need to look at least somewhat professional.
The cover to Big in Japan took me three weeks to settle on and get just right. I probably blew $50 on images and spent 20 hours in Photoshop before I had things arranged just-so. And it's hard, and sometimes it just doesn't come out the way you want. This one did. Others did not (I'm looking at you, Paint the Town Red.)
My favorite cover has been for the Impossible Door. I spent a lot of time hunting for the right block of images and went through about six variations before I put together the dragon eye with the green flame. I love that one, and I have it in a lovely poster format along with some others in my office.
What gets me is yes, covers are hard, but good Lord, they shouldn't be $1,000 hard. Once I started writing, I received a ton of offers from companies to do my covers, starting at the low price of $500 and going up into the thousands. Some artists I approached wouldn't touch anything for under several thousand. Now, with artists, I get it. That's a lot of time and effort, and the project could potentially exceed the money provided. However, I've seen what some of these other "services" offer, and it's the same thing I'm doing in the evening at the kitchen table, if that.
Yes, it can stink to do, and yes, I'll admit I have an unfair advantage. I was an Adobe instructor for eight years. I know my way around the Creative Suite. Still, Even knowing the technical aspects behind merging images, doing adjustments and clean-up, working with fonts, and adjusting title text, the brunt of these covers only took about three to four hours, and that's only because I couldn't find a decent image to work with.
Yes, your cover is important, and yes, you get what you pay for, but paying $1,000 as an independent publisher is just insane to me. The cover alone is NOT what is going to get you consistent sales. Marketing, using social media, and working your buns off is what brings exposure and sales.
Example: There's another author in the hero genre who released a superhero book featuring a woman removing a coat to reveal a lack of clothing underneath. The reviews on the book were all low, and all stressed the same thing- the cover had nothing to do with the interior of the book. While this probably gave him a spike in sales out of the gate, this kind of exposure can hurt long-term sales.
Your cover is important, but don't let your love for your book be an excuse for some jerk to take you for a ride that may cost you thousands and not deliver.
November 4, 2014
What works better?
This new story arc, Rare Gems, has been a challenge. I’ve never done a serial that connects so closely from one story to the next. I’ve done books in a series, but these are being done in the space of less than ten days a pop, and planning for them so that they fit in the larger, novel storyline has been very difficult. Several times, I’ve had to go back and redo entire sections of the plot to fit something that I’ve already written for the third novel, and vice-versa.
What are your thoughts? Are you enjoying the current storyline, or did you prefer the one-shot prequels? I’m curious.
What are your thoughts? Are you enjoying the current storyline, or did you prefer the one-shot prequels? I’m curious.
February 10, 2014
Doing a series
The Gailsone books are a series, and that scared me as an author. I see so many people with wonderful books that take a very long time in between releases, and readership tends to drift after a while. I get it- this is hard stuff. Coming up with an idea that you're putting out there for the world to see and making it work for you and for your audience takes an insane amount of time and attention.
I knew that when I started this, I would need to have content to keep readership up and active. As a result, I have made (a lot) of novellas and short stories to keep people interested until the second novel comes out. My concern is if these are doing what they should and keeping readership up, or if people view this as a tease?
Still having fun writing.
I knew that when I started this, I would need to have content to keep readership up and active. As a result, I have made (a lot) of novellas and short stories to keep people interested until the second novel comes out. My concern is if these are doing what they should and keeping readership up, or if people view this as a tease?
Still having fun writing.
December 1, 2013
Writing!
It is very, very hard not to write what other people want you to write. I think the biggest thing that hurt me in releasing my own book, and what is still nagging at me about the second, is that I don't know if this is a story people will want.
Then I say screw it; if they don't like it, there are a million other stories out there. This one is mine, and right now, I like it a lot.
Gailsone: Big In Japan
Then I say screw it; if they don't like it, there are a million other stories out there. This one is mine, and right now, I like it a lot.
Gailsone: Big In Japan
