Tevin Hansen's Blog

Yes, that is me with NY Times best-selling author ALEX KAVA. She was the moderator at our Indie Author panel yesterday (Saturday, October 8th, 2016) for Indie Author Day in Seward, Nebraska. I think the audience had a lot of fun, with a lot of laughs from all the talented Indie Authors I was surrounded by. Hope you other authors/illustrators/poets got out there and celebrated too! 

Handersen Publishing has been busy lately. Here's a few snippets about what we've been up to.

Psycho Kim was supposed to be released on Valentine's Day, but she went a little, well, psycho. And now you will have to wait until March 15. Beware the Ides of March, and keep your life-force securely locked away.

Mr. B 3 is going through one last round with our beta-readers, to round up and delete any typos etc. Mr. B 4 is in the proof stage,  but will also be available soon.

Alexia VS the Birthday Bear (formerly The Birthday Bear) underwent some MAJOR changes to the interior: graphics, new chapter headings, etc. Alexia VS the Birthday Bear will be printed using Lighting Source (we've only used Createspace until now), and will only be available through our website. (We are very proud of this one, so we are going to try something different.) 

We also have Rhomby the Skater Zombie in the beta reader stage. This one will **hopefully** be available through our website by Summer 2016. This is a fully illustrated chapter book with skateboarding zombies destroying all the sweet ledges and handrails all over town, and basically ruining life. 

And, of course, another issue of Stinkwaves magazine will be out April(ish).  

More details to come...

​Tevin & Nicki. 

Haymarket here in Lincoln, Nebraska runs from May until October. This year, October 10th was the last day, and Handersen Publishing was able to squeak in at the last minute. Most of the 200+ vendors sell homemade arts and crafts, or fresh produce, and of course tons of Nebraska Huskers stuff (everything you can think of, and then some). But I am 100% positive that we were the only booth selling self-published books. Which is probably why we had so many people stopping by our booth to chat, take a business card, or even by a book. (Our YA books did surprisingly well, as did The Thumb Book, our latest kids' book.) 

Pitching your book to people and then having them actually BUY it is a cool feeling. But what's even cooler than selling books? Yep, you guessed it. Meeting DUDE IN THE BADGER HAT. 

He even let me try it on! Keeps your head nice and toasty. 
(And yes, I was wearing an I GIVE MYSELF A THUMBS UP tee shirt. Which I believe we will make available for next year, since at least one--okay JUST one--lady asked me where I bought it, because she would wear it too.)

Thumbs up Haymarket. 
See ya next May with new books from Handersen Publishing! 

Apparently 81% of people have a bestseller inside them. That book is just waiting to come out! Furthermore, it turns out those people can write their “bestseller” in only 2 hours.

However, after reading through this particular Facebook post, I did a little digging. I discovered that it will actually take me 30 minutes a day--for 1 week—to become a bestselling author.

I must be doing this writing thing all wrong.

 Back in July of 2010, I began writing the Mr. B Presents series (by hand, in a homemade notebook). FIVE YEARS LATER….Book 5, the final installment is 25% done, and I probably won’t touch it until January of 2016, because of running an independent publishing house, a YA lit-mag, going to book fairs, connecting with people at local books stores and online, building inventory for our soon-to-be indie author online bookstore, and READING & REVIEWING OTHER INDIE AUTHOR BOOKS.  

 Here’s an idea I had for a kids’ book.
[image error] My wife hated the idea. However, after seeing our two kids constantly drawing thumbs on their fingers, and speaking with them, she got on board and made this book:   

Idea to finished product: 2 months.  

Hours involved: 100? 200?
[image error] Yeah, those 81% just might be able to write a best-selling book in a few hours, and then launch a “hassle-free” promotion strategy that will make them $4000-$5000/month. 

I can’t. My wife can’t. No single indie author I’ve met and spoken to, online or at book conferences can do it either. But then again, they didn’t watch the videos, now did they? 

Here’s a dumb way to become a productive writer: 

     Write a short story.

     Edit.

     Send it to a few lit mags. 

     Repeat. 

 Here’s another ridiculous way to become a writer: 

     Turn off the TV and sit down at a computer (or a notebook, if you prefer)

     Finish 1st draft and then put it away.

     Write another book. 

 If you can follow those simple steps, and find time to read a ton of books in your genre, edit, re-write, learn how to format eBook and paperback versions of your books, create an eye-catching cover, promote yourself, set up accounts for Amazon, Kobo, B&N, Smashwords, Sony, oh, and hone the craft of writing, then you will quite possibly become a successful writer. 

 You’ve got 2 hours. 

Ready, set…go! 

As I found myself with five whole minutes to waste, with no editing to do at the moment (only because I forgot to bring any pages with me), I went on to Twitter, scrolling through all the books for sale, and more books for sale, retweeting the ones I thought looked interesting, or had cool covers, when ALL OF A SUDDEN....

Need an editor for your manuscript? Click here! 

Curious, I tapped the link and went to their very professional looking website, with very professional looking editors staring back at me, posing in very professional looking headshots...yes, all very professional.

First thought: $$$$$

Any website that screams that much "professionalism" also screams (at least to me) how much $$$ it will cost you to use one of their best-of-the-best editors.

Second thought: That hilarious Will Smith scene in M.I.B. "...best of the best of the best, sir!" 


(If you've forgotten since 1997 here's a clip)
That particular editing service did not give any information about pricing without first contacting them, which again caused little dollar signs to drift comically past my eyes. So I did a little research on what was the average cost of having your manuscript professionally edited.  The prices ranged from .025/word to .032/word, or an hourly charge ranging anywhere from $15/hour to an incredible $100/hour. (Don't doctors get paid that much?) 

What indie author (without a massive following) has that kind of cash for an editor? 

That means if your manuscript is 50,000 words, that's $1250. Oh, you have a 100,000 word manuscript? We can do that for only $2500.00. Hey, no problem, you're an indie author! You certainly have an extra couple thousand dollars to pay for editing services you have no idea you'll be satisfied with, right? 

Here's the bottom line: 

If you have a personal relationship with the editor who will be handling your manuscript, I say go for it. If they are a friend/acquaintance/ you know where they work, etc...you'll know where to find them after your story comes back with barely a dozen highlight marks and a note that reads:  "....I believe the word 'but' should have two commas, one before and one after..." 

(The next blog will be more on that costly mistake...)   

Editing your book is as important as the actual writing of your book, if not MORE important. Once you finish your 1st draft, you should WANT to edit your own words, right? How else are you going to become a GOOD writer, instead of just a writer? Lots of stories that I've read, and you've read, could have been--and should've been--a whole lot shorter. The story was there, it just didn't need to be that looong. (That goes for traditionally published authors too. Don't tell me you've never read a book by one of your favorite authors and suddenly found yourself yelling "get to the point!" as you power through another boring descriptive passage that should've been cut.) 

Write what you WANT to write.

Then edit/slash/hack until it hurts. Until every sentence, every paragraph, every scene, every bit of dialogue gets to the point and pushes the story along. 

Try to think of the editing process like doing the final mix of your song. You worked very hard to create your masterpiece, so don't release it into the world until it is as perfect (or as near perfect) as you can possibly get it. 

Those first cuts will be the deepest. They will hurt. But as you see your story getting tighter and tighter, you will see where you babbled, where your dialogue got goofy, and what entire scenes (or characters) need to be cut. 

Only then will you be an editor. 

Now break out the red pen and start trimming that 138,000 word middle-grade novel.   

Happy slashing!

Personally, I don't see the difference between my original cover illustration for Mr. B 2 and the next one, which was illustrated by the talented Shaun Cochran. 

Oh. Wait.

Yeah, I do.

I used "fern " green, and he used "viridian."

 (PS--he also used his talent, and I used my 4-year old's Crayola markers.)

Handersen Publishing published not one, not two, but THREE new books this week! 

http://amzn.to/1ODA8lM 

http://amzn.to/1HuYzjz 

http://amzn.to/1yt07bK

We used Awesomegang for a small promotion. If you use them for your own book promotion, they will add your book to their newsletter (4600+), send several tweets/day, and add you for 2 days to their Facebook page (42,000+). Not bad for $10. We have used them before (twice for HOLE IN THE WALL) and were happy with the results.  

Since this self-publishing journey began (just two short years ago), we have made some awesome friends and built some great relationships. What we've found is that it isn't about promoting, promoting, promoting that sells books...it's making (and keeping) those relationships. Keeping in touch and cheering on other authors, poets, and illustrators who are trying to do what we do: take an idea, a simple sketch, or single line of poetry and turn it into a great finished product that you are excited to show the world.  

Did the promotion help to sell any books?

Yep--our old ones.

I've been reading a lot of articles on the subject of "over-promotion," and I must agree that we are being bombarded with books to buy via Facebook, Twitter, and pretty much every other social media site. So instead of advertising to the point of being annoying, we will continue to write, continue to put out a great product, and continue to build good writing relationships with our readers.


NEW STINKWAVES MAGAZINE AVAILABLE THIS WEEK!

Words written this week: 0

Illustrations: 10-15.

Pages edited: 50+

My wife and I are both very excited to announce that Handersen Publishing (our small-small-small Publishing House) is about to drop 5 books. (Well, actually 4 books and a new issue of our lit-mag.)

MR. B, Book 2 of 5 (young adult)

MR. B, Book 3 of 5 (young adult)

THE BIRTHDAY BEAR (middle grade 9-11, illustrated)

WHEN I WAS A GROWN-UP (kids poetry/illustrated)

STINKWAVES MAGAZINE (literary magazine/young adult)  

My wife is (quote) uber-excited to have written and published her first book. It is available on Amazon and at https://www.createspace.com/5326118 . It will be Kindle-ready within a few days. 

She already has a second book in progress. This one will help kids with counting, along with some silly pics to look at. The illustrations are already done, so all that's left is the formatting, editing, proof, revisions, fix illustrations, another proof, getting it as close to perfect as humanly possible, then hit that SUBMIT button. (Easy.)

We currently have 3 books available on Amazon(http://www.amazon.com/Tevin-Hansen/e/B00K3JLPXY/ref=sr_ntt_srch_lnk_1?qid=1428446809&sr=8-1) through KDP select, and two issues of STINKWAVES MAGAZINE, but we decided to not re-enroll for another 90 days. We've had what we called several successful giveaways. In total, we've had well over 350 downloads, and even sold a few copies. (We're seeing pretty steady borrows for HOLE IN THE WALL.)

Putting all our books into one basket (Amazon) just doesn't seem like the right thing to do anymore. We are planning to grow our small Publishing House, and the way to do that is to have all our books available through all the right markets: Kindle, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Kobo, and Google Books. 

Now it's only a matter of publishing 5 different books on 5 different websites, all with different formatting rules. We have been using Kindle for awhile, so we have that one memorized. (Adding an eBook version of your paperback is quite simple. There are TONS of great articles to read on the subject, even some YouTube videos to help you format your eBook. Watch the ones about creating a TOC in particular. Most are very helpful.) 

We had one of our books available on Nook up until late 2014, but the decision was made to unpublish with Nook so we could enroll in KDP, which everyone knows is exclusive. But going exclusive simply to have 5 free days (a chance to give your book away for free in hopes of some after sales) was an experiment. And we're calling it a successful one.  

Now I have a lot of research to do in order to make sure our books are formatted to perfection for the other three, Kobo, iBooks, and Google Books.


Words written this week: 0

Illustrations this week: 25+ 

Pages edited: 32 pgs. 

Recently a good friend of mine uttered the phrase "I have failed as an artist." Hearing that, or rather reading those words in the email, really hurt me. A lot. This is my friend, a talented artist, and my heart went out to him.  

My failure was trying to copy another writer.

My first novel was a complete train wreck. Forget having a beginning, a middle, and an end. My first manuscript had an OPENING SCENE that went on for 50,000 words. What's worse, it took me close to 2 years to write those words. 

(This was, of course, back during my "party days" when I wasn't reading much, but thought how cool it would be to write for a living.)

So, instead of picking a genre to write in, then reading tons of books in that genre, I started writing. Butt in chair, type, type, type. That train was soon derailed, hurrying off into the abyss that scientists discovered years ago, which came to be known as "Verbal Diarrhea."

All those books I loved reading as a teenager and into my early twenties--The Shining, Interview with a Vampire, Lord of the Flies, 1984, Jaws...(yes, Jaws was a book first, by Peter Benchley)--were all I needed to craft my own masterpiece. My thinking, at the time, was Hey, if they can do it, I can do it too--just like them. Exactly like them.

The result was horrible. HORRIBLE.

My wife and I still laugh about the time I spun around in the office chair after printing off the pages of a brand new scene: a bloodied, beaten father, duct-taped to a chair, unconscious. The antagonist of the story, a 12-year-old bully, had thrashed his abusive father with an empty booze bottle.

Silence followed. After a thoughtful pause, she said, "What kind of book are you trying to write?"

But...but...what do you mean? It's a book!

Then I thought, Agh, what does she know? All she does is read books, books, and more books, in every genre out there, and has a much better idea of flow, and "voice" (writing like YOU) than anybody I know. I, my dear, am a writer.

I was trying to write some kind of cross between a Roald Dahl kid's book and a Stephen King horror novel.   

Two years later, I did it again.

Neil Gaiman's Graveyard Book floored me. Absolutely floored me. After tiring of listening to the radio all day at work (factory work, where we were allowed to wear those huge industrial ear muffs, which now came with a jack for my iPod), I decided to try an audiobook.

Having never heard of Neil Gaiman before that day, I decided to give him a try. The description must've intrigued me, so I bought it--for $7.99 I believe. 

I don't know how many times in a row I listened to Graveyard Book, but it was a lot. Ten? Twenty times? In a ten hour shift I could listen to it all the way through once, then start over and get to maybe the second or third chapter before the quitting bell. 

Talk about an eye-opener. Or rather, a brain-opener.

That's what I wanted to write. That's the genre I want to write in: Young Adult.

I crafted my next novel exactly like Graveyard Book, into little sections, with each chapter able to stand on its own as a short story. (Neil himself said this was an idea he stole from Kipling's Jungle Book.)

My wife spotted this phony trick right away. "Well, the story is there...it just doesn't sound like YOU."

Down-hearted, but determined, I tossed it. Then I re-wrote my book from scratch. After several months of hard work, when the next draft was completed and had just gone through its first read through, I got this from my wife: "You know, I think maybe you should write this one in 1st person."

Ergh.

The whole manuscript, every last page, went into the recycle bin. Determined to write like me, how I wanted to write, I ended up writing the entire book, again, this time without any notes, any references, any distractions (aside from the kids pounding on the door and asking what I was doing in there, and if I wanted to play hide-and-seek). I wrote the entire book on my laptop, reclined in a chair, relaxed.   

(The result is the Mr. B Presents series (now available on Amazon through Createspace.)

After years of writing short stories, novellas, full manuscripts, and studying the craft of writing simply by reading tons of books in the YA genre (and non-fiction books, and biographies, even blogs), I felt confident to send those stories out into the world.  

Your goal is to create something, be it a book, poetry collection, or graphic novel that YOU can be proud of. To finally have a finished product in your hand. That is a great accomplishment.   

Write, draw, create for YOU.

Comparing your work to what other people are doing is a dangerous road to go down. You begin to lose YOUR voice, be it in writing, illustrating, or poetry. Those authors and illustrators have worked really hard to get where they're at. So if that's what you want, then you will need to do the same--the same hard work, not produce the same product with a slight twist.

Nobody with a finished product in their hands has the right to call themselves a failure. Failure is trying to be somebody else. Failure is being so hyper-critical of your own work that you simply stop creating.     

In the words of the philosopher Christopher Cornell:

"To be yourself is all that you can do."

Recently a good friend of mine uttered the phrase "I have failed as an artist." Hearing that, or rather reading those words in the email, really hurt me. A lot. This is my friend, a talented artist, and my heart went out to him.  

My failure was trying to copy another writer.

My first novel was a complete train wreck. Forget having a beginning, a middle, and an end. My first manuscript had an OPENING SCENE that went on for 50,000 words. What's worse, it took me close to 2 years to write those words. 

(This was, of course, back during my "party days" when I wasn't reading much, but thought how cool it would be to write for a living.)

So, instead of picking a genre to write in, then reading tons of books in that genre, I started writing. Butt in chair, type, type, type. That train was soon derailed, hurrying off into the abyss that scientists discovered years ago, which came to be known as "Verbal Diarrhea."

All those books I loved reading as a teenager and into my early twenties--The Shining, Interview with a Vampire, Lord of the Flies, 1984, Jaws...(yes, Jaws was a book first, by Peter Benchley)--were all I needed to craft my own masterpiece. My thinking, at the time, was Hey, if they can do it, I can do it too--just like them. Exactly like them.

The result was horrible. HORRIBLE.

My wife and I still laugh about the time I spun around in the office chair after printing off the pages of a brand new scene: a bloodied, beaten father, duct-taped to a chair, unconscious. The antagonist of the story, a 12-year-old bully, had thrashed his abusive father with an empty booze bottle.

Silence followed. After a thoughtful pause, she said, "What kind of book are you trying to write?"

But...but...what do you mean? It's a book!

Then I thought, Agh, what does she know? All she does is read books, books, and more books, in every genre out there, and has a much better idea of flow, and "voice" (writing like YOU) than anybody I know. I, my dear, am a writer.

I was trying to write some kind of cross between a Roald Dahl kid's book and a Stephen King horror novel.   

Two years later, I did it again.

Neil Gaiman's Graveyard Book floored me. Absolutely floored me. After tiring of listening to the radio all day at work (factory work, where we were allowed to wear those huge industrial ear muffs, which now came with a jack for my iPod), I decided to try an audiobook.

Having never heard of Neil Gaiman before that day, I decided to give him a try. The description must've intrigued me, so I bought it--for $7.99 I believe. 

I don't know how many times in a row I listened to Graveyard Book, but it was a lot. Ten? Twenty times? In a ten hour shift I could listen to it all the way through once, then start over and get to maybe the second or third chapter before the quitting bell. 

Talk about an eye-opener. Or rather, a brain-opener.

That's what I wanted to write. That's the genre I want to write in: Young Adult.

I crafted my next novel exactly like Graveyard Book, into little sections, with each chapter able to stand on its own as a short story. (Neil himself said this was an idea he stole from Kipling's Jungle Book.)

My wife spotted this phony trick right away. "Well, the story is there...it just doesn't sound like YOU."

Down-hearted, but determined, I tossed it. Then I re-wrote my book from scratch. After several months of hard work, when the next draft was completed and had just gone through its first read through, I got this from my wife: "You know, I think maybe you should write this one in 1st person."

Ergh.

The whole manuscript, every last page, went into the recycle bin. Determined to write like me, how I wanted to write, I ended up writing the entire book, again, this time without any notes, any references, any distractions (aside from the kids pounding on the door and asking what I was doing in there, and if I wanted to play hide-and-seek). I wrote the entire book on my laptop, reclined in a chair, relaxed.   

(The result is the Mr. B Presents series (now available on Amazon through Createspace.)

After years of writing short stories, novellas, full manuscripts, and studying the craft of writing simply by reading tons of books in the YA genre (and non-fiction books, and biographies, even blogs), I felt confident to send those stories out into the world.  

Your goal is to create something, be it a book, poetry collection, or graphic novel that YOU can be proud of. To finally have a finished product in your hand. That is a great accomplishment.   

Write, draw, create for YOU.

Comparing your work to what other people are doing is a dangerous road to go down. You begin to lose YOUR voice, be it in writing, illustrating, or poetry. Those authors and illustrators have worked really hard to get where they're at. So if that's what you want, then you will need to do the same--the same hard work, not produce the same product with a slight twist.

Nobody with a finished product in their hands has the right to call themselves a failure. Failure is trying to be somebody else. Failure is being so hyper-critical of your own work that you simply stop creating.     

In the words of the philosopher Christopher Cornell:

"To be yourself is all that you can do."