Nik Gregory » Writing

MIA for a month

nikgregory — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 01:31:05 +0000

Okay, so I’ve been missing from my blog for over a month now. I’d send myself to bed without supper for being a bad blogger, but that really wouldn’t help the situation. Plus I’m really hungry so it’s absolutely out of the question.

So why have I been so busy? The big move, and a lot of other shit tacked on for good measure, because you know moving isn’t a big enough time sink that we just had to add in frequent socializing too.

We got out around mid-month. Spent the next weekend up in Bobcaygeon for The Tragically Hip concert, the highlight of that poorly arranged concert was actually Bobcaygeon, thankfully the sound lasted throughout and it didn’t turn into a riot. The 2 hours people had to wait for a beer on a Saturday afternoon really didn’t help matters.

Anyway, we returned to the apartment that week to do our vacate clean, to find our landlords had absolutely trashed the place, and conducted illegal entries to allow their contractors in. They then had the gall to tell us we could be back charged for them ruining our carpet with paint and solvent.

That month essentially ended with my wife terrorizing their legal department and myself terrorizing their office staff when they decided it was acceptable for them to refuse to do their jobs and hang up the phone on us. I still don’t grasp why people in this century, over 130 years since the telephone was invented, haven’t figured out that there’s a feature called redial.

We’re now into the new place, with nice and pleasant management. No more elevators, no more frequent police visits to our building. Heck I haven’t seen the police here and we’ve lived here a month, it’s a goddamn miracle! We have a pool that actually has decent times and a dedicated adult swim, plus it’s supervised with life guards so they can have more than 8 kids in the pool at once.

We also went to one of Brad Pattisons classes, which was great fun. It was a brutal onslaught on the humans, the dogs seemed quite pleased. I’m honestly not sure it even phased Kelly, but that’s the Jack Russell monster in her genes. More on that in another post, maybe. No promises. I’ve got writing to catch up on too.

Of Amazon and eBooks, again

nikgregory — Fri, 20 May 2011 02:52:48 +0000

And so the time has come that yet more horribly misleading, but awfully optimistic figures are being announced. eBook unit sales have matched print sales for Amazon.

Before I go any further, I’ll point to Of Amazon and eBooks. That fracas was over Amazon attempting to force lower eBook prices to help subsidize the sales of Kindle units, which thankfully was dropped fully in favour of their incentive program at 70%. It also has a full and comprehensive book pricing breakdown; what you need to know: 10% of cover price covers printing, 10% goes to the distributor and a whopping 40% is taken by the retailer, which is why Walmart manages to sell big titles at 30% and sometimes even 37% off and still make money.

Now onto the news. Amazon’s present claim is grossly misleading, eBook sales still only attribute to around 9% of the total publishing market. Total Book sales for January 2011 was at $805.7 million, and eBooks were only $69.9 million of that.

What’s actually going on?

Mass Market Paperbacks and Trade Paperback sales have been losing ground, notably Mass Markets as this is the key area where eBooks are cannibalizing the market. Why? Because eBooks are the new mass market books. They have virtually zero expenses for editorial work as this has already been done in more expensive editions. They’re released cheap and you’ll likely see the ebook copy only about 10% less than the paperback. Why? As I said, 10% of the cover price goes to printing. The 10% for distribution is still in the midst with Amazon charging kickbacks to the seller.

Hardbacks quite interestingly are still going strong, they have yet to see a true loss in sales. This may be because publishers are recognizing them for what they truly are – luxury items. They’re coming in limited editions, and I don’t doubt it’ll be long before they’re coming in boxed sets with extras and short stories, author commentary and such attached to justify a $50 cover price.

What is truly great news for the publishing industry is this: Mass Market and Trade paperback sales aren’t just disappearing into eBooks. It appears that on the whole, a portion of eBook sales are complimenting the industry, meaning eBooks might actually be increasing the amount of money people are spending on reading (which will mean in about a decade we might have some awesome book->movie adaptations going again).

So is there any really great news? Yes, there actually is. In the month of February, publishings generally low-point eBook sales were higher than any category with $90 million in sales.

Is there any awesome news?

Perhaps, if you have patience.

This story isn’t new, after all we were hearing these claims 5 years ago about MP3 sales, but they’ve been forgotten now. Perhaps we nerds just like to tout the indie stories like Amanda Hocking and all the other self-publishers doing amazingly (which incidentally aren’t included in any industry figures, electronic or paper). What’s the news? Music physical sales will hit a record low this year (estimated) at $5.7 billion, and MP3 sales will hit a record high at $5.7 billion. Although it’s entirely possible MP3 sales will finally overtake physical sales.

So what does this tell us? Aside from the fact that I haven’t played a CD in around 3 years, and haven’t bought a CD player since my Sony Discman in highschool, it tells us that in around 5 years we may see eBook sales matching total Print sales.

What will be truly amazing is that people could have a $400-million dollar market available literally at the click of an upload button. Given companies like Smashwords, distributing purely indie artists through Amazon, Apple and Sony, it could be great. Even though I’ll be sad to see the sexy hard covers go, it will be a great day for the author.

Last words? Don’t hold me on the predictions, eBooks aren’t purely cannibalizing the market like MP3′s were. We have radicals that people aren’t capable of predicting here like Ms. Hocking. I hadn’t heard a peep of her at the time of my first Of Amazon and eBooks, she didn’t publish until 2 months later and made 2 million dollars in sales in 1 year.

Which leaves me with my last words. Someone kick the crap out of me if I’m making another one of these posts without at least having an eBook up for sale.

Dare to be bad

nikgregory — Wed, 11 May 2011 04:04:55 +0000

In between writing I’ve been reading Dean Wesley Smith’s essays on writing. You’d probably expect to hear something at least a little more inspirational, but ‘inspiration’ is probably a myth he should tackle in his New World of Publishing essays.

Suffice it to say, it had one great piece of advice I haven’t fallen on nearly enough when I’ve been struggling: Dare to be bad. The irony here is that I started writing because I bought one too many books that I found wholly substandard and spent $5 or more on. I always found myself thinking “I could do better than this shit”. So I try and when I get stumped, I’ve often failed to think “shit, well they’re selling that crap and making a living, why shouldn’t I?”

Aside from a great voice, I don’t get why the Harry Potter franchise even managed to appear given the limited initial print run. The opening of the book relied entirely on Rowling’s voice to carry it through until it eventually hit intrigue. As a child I lost interest, it took being in my 20′s and thinking “maybe I should actually read the damn book now” to actually read the damn book. It still has massive pacing issues to say it’s allegedly a kids book (note: a book featuring a child as a protagonist doesn’t make it a children’s book).

Now, again, I’ve got to dare to be bad if I want to get anything sold. Nothing is ever forgotten on the internet, but you have to be (in)famous for a search engine to find it.

A post about time, dogs, and chocolate cake

nikgregory — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 02:04:37 +0000

So I’m eating a lovely piece of double-chocolate cake left over from my birthday. Why am I eating delicious cake at almost 10pm? It isn’t because I just finished an awesome gourmet dinner (although I did make a yummy dinner earlier, but that’s four hours ago now). It’s because we just got back from Kelly’s obedience class and took her on a half-hour walk, meaning we didn’t even get in our front door until 9:40pm.

Well, that’s a lie, I got in at around 5pm and made dinner and got cleaned up to take the dog to obedience class. My wife got back around 5:30pm and took the dog out for a half-hour walk and ate dinner.

Why am I saying this? I honestly don’t know, perhaps so a random morphine addict can stab me with a needle and sedate me so I actually get some rest.

I haven’t written in a few days, which bugs me. I need to haul my ass to Writer Obedience classes so I learn not to procrastinate. Although I feel more like marching Mr Procrastination out back down by the creek and blowing its head off with a shotgun. Not so much because I dislike procrastinating, I quite enjoy it which is the whole problem for me doing it so much. It’s because if I didn’t procrastinate and actually finished one of the half-dozen half-finished stories I have, I stand the off-chance of actually selling something and resolving this problem.

Although if I ever do become a writer for a living, I feel like I’m going to look back on this and feel like marching younger Nik down to the creek and blowing his brains out.

See that in the side bar…

nikgregory — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 21:51:31 +0000

There’s a little portion of the sidebar on this website dedicated to my writing projects. Currently it’s only displaying one, although there’s a few that are presently in a state of “Dude, where the fuck did he go?” as they got uber-dumped at the beginning of NaNoWriMo.

So what’s my point? You might ask, well because it just jumped 15,000 words up to 33363. Why the sudden jump? Well because you like me, I forgot it’s there. Although I had a big write-a-thon on Wednesday when I got snowed out from work (I also moved a fridge, or should I say moved back a fridge, but that’s off topic) and ploughed out around 3,000 words.

Why is this important? Well maybe it isn’t to you, but to me it means I’m fast approaching the half-way mark. A boss battle may be in the midsts with Captain Procrastination.

Also in other news, I will be turning 23 as of tomorrow, which means tomorrow is the anniversary of that date upon which I was born.

Fire alarms, sleep deprivation and writing

nikgregory — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 00:47:43 +0000

I wasn’t very tired, but well aware that the hours were ticking down and that I would be tired today. The 6 hour mark passed at midnight, so around 12:30 I decided to go to bed and read. We got to a little past the 1am mark, I settled down ready to sleep and then woop!-weep!-woop! the fire alarm starts going off.

I settled into the “I’m comfy, it’s a false alarm again” mentality. However, my wife being the worrier and anti-burning-to-death proponent I put some clothes on and we climbed down the 22 half-flights of stairs to the ground floor. The firemen were just arriving, looking equally as dissatisfied with the situation as I was: AKA they already knew it was a false alarm.

We spent around 20 minutes outside with the dog before the firemen left and the elevators started working. We got into bed around 2am, talked to gone 2:30 and probably fell asleep around 3am. The alarm went off an unsatisfactory 3 hours later and I followed the preprogrammed routine like I was a robot.

Now we skip to now. I’m not going to take needing a nap as an excuse to not get some writing done. So I’m digging in my heels, pulling the tab on a Rockstar and I’m going to sit down and get storytelling.

Writing, Total War and Chili

nikgregory — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 18:32:36 +0000

I was up late last night writing, and up early this morning writing so it’s still progressing well.

Especially considering I’ve been playing Napoleon Total War (I dare not test my computer with a more recent Total War game as it may commit suicide) as the Brits and have Napoleon on the run. I conquered Paris (with about 10 mortars and hiding below a hill-line so they couldn’t slaughter me with their 12lb cannon) and have Napoleon pushed into Eastern Europe. Austria fell to him and he’s decimating Prussia, however Russia has been expanding well, decimating the Ottoman Empire and I’d already wiped out the Spanish during my first cessation with France. Now we’re in the second cessation I took a foothold in Greece.

Now we’re making my wife’s Chilli for dinner. I think we’ll be needing bigger bowls soon because I’m always going back for seconds on it.

Also in braking news: The dog is lazy. Apparently the Dachshund is coming into full blow whenever she’s calm because she just loves to sleep.

Just Get On With It

nikgregory — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 03:13:32 +0000

I’ve finally been putting time into getting my writing done each and every day. I frequently get into periods of a negative feedback loop where my lack of writing makes me feel bad, which makes me not feel like writing. My problem has always been getting out of my own head, stop procrastinating and just get on with it.

Also I’ve noticed I’ve been doing a lot of grave digging lately in my writing. I’ve been writing fiction for as long as I remember, and with this project I’m on now I’ve noticed I have been taking a lot of great ideas I’ve had before and started reusing them to complement each other. It’s like my old works are the manure laid to get something worthwhile. I suppose, just like a farmer, you’ve got to hope the shit you reap is different from the shit you sowed.

Christmas: Post Game 2010

nikgregory — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 16:31:51 +0000

With Christmas over and a stack of video games that should keep me entertained for the foreseeable future, *and* a stack of board games including Catan and Risk that will certainly keep me entertained in those non-digital moments (or power outages), I have to say Christmas was successful yet again.

However, the grass is once again becoming green and it’s calling for a high of 8C this Saturday, making the first day of the new year veritably t-shirt weather.

Finally, I’m finding plenty of time to get writing done whilst still relaxing, which is why I’m venturing here to blog.

Rain, rain and a little bit of snow

nikgregory — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 13:59:15 +0000

Rain has given me a day off, so I’m not playing slip&slide in the mud wallows of new construction. So now I get the opportunity to catch up on writing I didn’t do yesterday because of a trip to the dentist.

It also gives me time to do some general cleaning around the apartment.