The Temple of the Exploding Head

I can honestly say as a fully functioning adult that I’m much happier and at ease now than I was as a child. I was a worried little kid, haggard with what I perceived to be the weight of the world on my shoulders and made brittle by guilt. I was just a kid–what did I have to be guilty about?

Why, everything, that’s what. Children are, by nature, ego-maniacs. Everything revolves around them, and such was the case with me. I was convinced that I was personally responsible for all of the bad things that happened in the world, and following the proper Catholic path was key in saving not only myself but the world as well. That’s a lot of responsibility.

That I took my CCD training seriously is an understatement. I sat there in the church classroom listening to all the horrible things that were waiting for me should I not be a good and upright boy. It was not enough to simply act in a saintly way, one’s thoughts had to be pure as well, and I was convinced that the nuns standing at the head of the class in their orthopedic shoes were talking directly to me. “The Devil will test you,” they said, “and he speaks.” So, ten years old, I looked for signs of the Devil everywhere. And there he was.

Case in point, I was certain the Devil was out there trying to sway me and cause my fall from grace. The `70’s was a big time for the Devil. You had things like The Exorcist, The Omen, Beyond the Door, The Devil’s Rain, and on and on. Each one, I was convinced was a personal message from the Devil to me. Of course my parents didn’t take me to any of these movies, however there was a new thing called HBO which brought them uncut right into my livingroom. I didn’t treally want to watch these movies, but I felt I had to. It was my job. It was my responsibility to know what I was up against. So I watched, and I spent a lot of sleepless nights wondering how I could have let things get so bad.

Everything I saw somehow related to me and was proof the movies were meant to send a stern message. After I saw The Exorcist, I became chronically afraid of my bedroom window, thinking that the Devil was out there trying to get in. The demon-kid in The Omen looked a lot like me and The Devil’s Rain took place in Texas–I was from Texas, and on and on and on. I was, if anything, good at seeing connections in things, even if it was misguided.

So, I spent most of my childhood resisting what I perceived to be a constant assault from the bowels of Hell. When I write about all-seeing Sisters, and giants and hidden demons all around I write of things I was afraid of as a terrified little kid huddled under a blanket straining to keep my wicked thoughts in check and praying for relief. When I write about people who feel no fear, that’s how I wanted to be.

As an adult, I’m a lot more laid back, and cut myself a break every now and again.

Bowl Naked

RG

It’s all about marketing, people. I always try to stay keen on what’s attracting people at the various shows; on what pulls folks in, what causes them to stop and foster up a conversation.

I often go to shows with my friend, fellow author Denise Verrico (Cara Mia). It’s better to go in pairs, as you’ve got a wingman to watch your back and keep your chin up. Denise writes urban horror/ vampire books. She has a furry little pillow that she brings with her that says “I Love Vampires.” I noticed that her little pillow was reasonably successful in making people stop and talk. “Oh, I just love vampires,” folks often said, bouncing up and down.

I just loooooove vampires …

And the wheels in my fiendish little Chipotle-soaked brain began to turn.

I do not write about vampires. I write about loose sci-fi fantasy and romance, lots of people fighting and wearing odd clothes in space, or wearing nothing at all as the case may be. It occurred to me that I needed to capitalize on the popularity of vampires to help attract attention–not on vampires themselves, but the word: Vampire. If I could tack up some big, proud marketing with the word VAMPIRE blasted out in lurid print, then maybe, just maybe, I could snag some of those Vampire-lovers to my table. And, then, using all the charm at my disposal, I could seduce the buggers and send them away with a League of Elder book tucked under their arm before they knew what the heck was going on. It just had to work. I just needed to figure out how to do it without libeling myself in the process.

My favorite heroine of the Temple of the Exploding Head trilogy, Lady Sammidoran of Monama, came to my rescue. Sam, all chalk white and matte black, has a rather Night-Stalking look to her. Sure, she looks an awful lot like a vampire. Of course, Sam isn’t a vampire, she’s an alien and ….

Ah … mindwave.

I had this painting done up for me by Eve Ventrue, that Teutonic Titan from Germany, of Sam and her man, Lord Kabyl. It was perfect. All I needed was a slogan. So, Sam looks lie a vampire, but she’s not. She’s an alien. So, how about using a play on words: not vampire, alien. Yes, I liked that, and, I’d strumpet it out there in gigantic, all caps text: not VAMPIRE: no, no: ALIEN.

I had Eve paint me up a second Sam/Kay pic, this time donning Sam in a pair of steampunk goggles.

And, it works. People stop all the time and look at it. Getting people to stop and talk is the key to success. I had shirts made of it as well, and I sold out of them at a recent show.

So, when in doubt and you need a marketing angle, use pop culture and twist its ear a little to suit your needs. Works every time.

Bowl Naked

RG

Ok, so I went on and on about how hard it is to be a new author in my last post, and it certainly is (a few of my readers were obsessed with my apparent inability to properly shop for peanut butter, of all things). But, all is not lost.

What is the goal of a new author? The goal of any new author is to foster an idea and share your work, spread it around and get it into the hands of your readership. Do that, build the Idea of You, and all good things will follow. The key to spreading that idea and overcoming the wall that exists between you and your potential readership is you … the author.

People, I’ve found, are fascinated by the creator of a thing, be it a work of art of some sort, a piece of music, or, in this case, a book. People acknowledge how difficult it is to not only create something, but to have the tenacity to see it through, make it grow and have it sitting in front of you as a realized project. Grab twenty random people walking down the street and ask them if they’ve ever written a book, and your affirmative response will probably be pretty low; however, ask that same twenty people if they’ve ever thought about writing something, and almost all of them will probably say “yes”. You, as a published author, have accomplished something many people think about doing, but for whatever reason, never do, and that impresses them. Rightly so.

The author, be they known or unknown, has immense power when it comes to convincing people to tread in unknown waters. The main difference between the known and unknown author is people willingly come to the known author while, you, as the unknown, have to go to them and make the first move so to speak. You have to get past the initial, and in some cases, debilitating, wall of skepticism and mistrust and foster a positive atmosphere. That can be easier said than done, but it must happen. And when it does it’s like magic: people gathering by your table to see what’s going on, listening to you speak and taking it all in like eager pupils from a benevolent master.

Engage the people, get their imagination going, make them feel like they’re part of the process a little bit. Be energetic. Stand, don’t sit at your events. Sitting implies an aloofness and detachment from the situation. If you can, stand in front of your table instead of behind it. Be at their eye level and talk to them, not at them. And, once you’ve got their attention, all the little things you’ve brought with you come into their own: business cards, table cards and other bits of colorful media, that were worthless before, now become essential (the pic at the beginning of the post is an example of a table card–just a pretty picture on the front and all your info on the back). If you can send someone away with your card in their hand, that is a win. Those people do, sometimes, come back. They come to you, and it’s a remarkable thing to see. If you do nothing but get rid of all your business and table cards, you’ve had a great day. That is what you want. You spent the day spreading an idea, you are the idea, and the rest will follow.

New authors have a hard way to go no matter how you look at it. You were tenacious in creating your work, now, be equally tenacious in getting it out to the people. There will probably be a few sessions that you’ll have to write off as a “Howdy-Do occasion” and leave it at that. Those sessions, however humbling, are critical in making the transition from being unknown to known. Once you burn your mug into people’s brains and learn how to harness the power that you as a creator of a piece of work have to inspire, moving your stuff will become significantly less of a chore. It’s actually pretty fun.

Bowl Naked
RG

Picture this …

You’re a new author just hitting the scene. Your book looks awesome. You’ve got a good idea and a story to go with it. Your book is written with heart and soul, and it’s just crying out to be taken home and read. You’re standing there at the show, your books in a nice stack; you look good and you smell good, and you’ve marked it down to nothing. Heck, you’re practically giving it away.

But, avast! … nobody’s buying. Why??

Dude–nobody knows who the hell you are, that’s why.

Let’s face it, we’re all creatures of marketing. We just love surrounding ourselves with the familiar and the tried and true. Jingles pounded into your head like a ten-penny spike up a Geek’s nose, and slick slogans burned into your retinas. It’s like sucking on a tailpipe your whole life, no matter how rotten it is, you start to need it after a while, and a bit of fresh air just won’t do. Things that are unknown to us are things not to be trusted no matter how pretty and cheaply priced–just like a guy stepping in front of you trying to sell a pocket watch out of the lining of his trench coat. Your mother warned you about shady guys like that, and she warned you about strange authors at shows as well.

Just ignore them and maybe they’ll go away.

Take this for example. My wife wanted to go into an Aldi the other day. We never shop there, but she wanted to go inside, God only knows why. So, we stopped, went in, and I was immediately put off. Look at all these weird brands that I’d never heard of before, it was like I’d fallen into Bizarro-world in there, or a particularly uncomfortable episode of the Twilight Zone where nothing’s as it should be, and I wanted out.

Crackers, and toothpaste, and breads of all kinds, each made by obscure people in obscure places. It was Hell. I was in Hell. “Don’t you need peanut butter, hon?” my wife asked. No–don’t go down there! I ran to take her by the arm and flee, but, there she was, browsing like it was no big deal.

Look at the peanut butter! Where’s the Jif? I want my Jif! I don’t give a flying hoot about Golden Bunny Peanut Butter. Where did that come from? It’s evil. I made her put down her purchases and I carried my wife out of that den of horrors, back into the comforting sunshine of trans-fats and mass-marketing.

So, that’s a rather manic example, but it’s basically what you’re going to run into as an unknown writer selling an unknown book. There is a wall between you and the people you’d like to sell to. You’re on one side and they’re on the other. Your image on the other side of that wall is distorted and demonic. Oh, they pass by and politely smile and try to get away from you as quickly as they can and forget the whole thing ever happened. Try and say a few words to your potential customers and it’s like you just spat out the Lord’s Prayer backwards. Seriously. Nothing you can say or do’s going to get past that wall, and it’s simply because these folks don’t know who you are.

Is there any hope for you, the unknown author? Are some authors just born “Somebody” and others are forever “Nobody” and therefore consigned to the dregs of obscurity and oblivion?

Sure, there’s hope. Sure there’s a way to step out of the shadows and become a familiar face.

There is a way to get out from behind the Nobody Wall and let somebody else occupy it for a while.

Come back tomorrow, and I’ll tell you what it is.

Bowl Naked

RG

I’m often told that I’m a really funny guy. I’ve heard it from enough people that there must be some sort of truth to the claim, though I personally don’t think I’m an overly funny person.

I got an early inkling of this from Carol Phillips, my talented cover artist. She read the first book, League of Elder: Sygillis of Metatron, and said on several occasions how she enjoyed my sense of humor. Odd, I don’t recall anything overly humorous in Book 1. I shrugged it off and continued.

I got another dose of my alleged “funny writing” not long ago while having my daily row with Jasmine B. Brennan, a dear friend whom I love to death on those select moments when I don’t want to hide her body someplace after I’ve murdered it. Jasi said I was one of the funniest writers she’d ever read. “And,” she said, “the fact the you proceed about your business completely oblivious to just how funny you are makes it even more hilarious.”

My good friend, the incredibly gifted Chris Westover, also says the same thing.

I fell into a funk. So … what are you saying, Jasi? What am I … a clown, is that what I am? What about all the death and destruction I write about–what about that? Did I bring a clown-suit to the blood-letting and didn’t even know it??

“Yeah,” she said.

I actually got pretty down on myself after that. What am I? Who am I? I really didn’t know anymore. Of course I realize I add little things here and there in the story to add a bit of levity. For example, Syg’s tendency to want to bowl naked, that’s sort of funny. I consider such things satirical humor, just like in Robocop, when a malfunctioning ED-209 pumps the poor businessman full of lead at the beginning of the movie. There’s really nothing funny about a man getting horribly killed, but, in the context of the movie, it was quite funny. The extreme nature of the killing made it funny, and hence my tendency to put rather extreme bits into the books, like Syg’s naked bowling.

After Jasi informed me what a comedian I am, I vowed to do her one up and churn out nothing but flesh-rending dirges, cold-steel elegies of such sorrow and hopeless lamentation that every turn of the page would be a new cry for death. I was determined, and, to that end, I plunged into the works of my brilliant friend, Cheryl Moore’s Unbound Boxes, Limping Gods. Cheryl paints a relentlessly bleak picture and beats down her characters without mercy. That’s what I wanted to be: bleak and merciless.

However, I’m no Cheryl Moore. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t sustain it. Something Jasi said then came back to me.

It’s a gift you have, she said. “Your writing wouldn’t be the same without it. Some people strive very hard to do what you do naturally–and unconsciously. Just go with what you’ve got.”

It’s a gift.

Ok, I’ll do that. I’ll just go with it. I suppose every so often, I pop into a clown suit and a funny nose and dance.

And, I guess the suit doesn’t fit all that bad after all.

Bowl Naked

RG