I haven't blogged for a while, but the events of yesterday warrant a post if ever something did. Yesterday I watched and waited, along with billions of people, to find out who the next pope would be. As a historian, I have perhaps an unusual appreciation for the conclave, as the basic workings of selecting a pope have not changed for almost 750 years. Watching the proceedings allows us bystanders a chance to feel as if we have gone back in time to the Middle Ages. Yes, the new pope sent out a tweet announcing his election soon after, but that was not the first we heard of it. We saw white smoke emerge from the Sistine Chapel, the same signal Romans would have seen in the 1300s announce a new leader of the Catholic Church. It was an experience we could share with generations upon generations of fellow human beings, and I think it is a brilliant example of keeping a time-honored tradition in a shifting and slipping modern world.

What made this event personal for me, however, was not the pomp and circumstance, nor the wondrous news that the new pope was both the first Jesuit and the first non European (although his father is, technically, an Italian immigrant, so there are strong ties there). No, the amazing part of this story for me is that he changed his name to Pope Francis. Popes have taken on new names for centuries and centuries. We just had Benedict XVI, and not one of them was actually named Benedict. But no one had ever taken the name Francis. Until now.

So, why is this important? We have a character in our book, Hade's Gambit, that is named Francis DeSolei. He is a vain, pompous, evil man, who uses his connections to rise up within the Catholic Church in order to pull it down in the last days and set himself upon the thrown. In the end of our book, he has succeeded in taking over the church in America, and calls himself Pope Francis. Yeah. Yikes. In our second book, the Rise of Cain, coming out hopefully this summer, Pope Francis becomes a true menace to the world. He refuses to repent, and continues to make a mockery of God and everything religious. We are not trying to frame the Catholic Church as a bad organization at all, as we all have a healthy respect for the church and know many wonderful members. Our point is to show that evil people can pull down good things if given the chance, and that this is what happens with Francis. He infiltrates a good organization and corrupts it for his own power and wealth.

So, last night and this morning we have had numerous conversations about how to proceed with this. People have already ordered copies of the book after finding out about this, and I'm sure in the near future we might have some people who refuse to read our books due to this. Do we change the character's name in book two, do we ignore this, do we put a disclaimer in the beginning of the book? Clearly, we named him this last year in a book already published, and as there had never been a Pope Francis before (we even checked!), we didn't think this would ever be a situation we would run into. And yet here it is, and we have run right into it and smacked our heads.

I think beyond the immediacy of this situation, however, this raises some great points in general about how to write a book. Even the best laid plans can sometimes go astray. We have given names to hundreds of characters in our books to this point (yes, they are big books), and you always cross your fingers and hope that you won't run into any problems. We have such names as Petr Zhugravinsky, David Livingston Sumbawanga, and Callithrix Aurita Williams (otherwise known as Marmoset). As an author, you give your characters names you believe they could have, and in a sense they become like your children in that regards - you have helped create them and helped give them their identity. But, they are not real, they live in a make-believe world, and their interactions with the real world is generally only limited to how those who read about them interpret and think about them.

So, what happens when a character you have becomes intertwined in this way, though a name, with a very real person? Unfortunately this goes against one of my personal rules about writing - never do anything that brings the person out of the story. A writer should never add or include anything that will take the reader out of that world they have created. Having a character do something wildly out of their personality, screwing up the time-space continuum, including information that is inaccurate, false, or just plain wrong, or any one of a dozen of other examples, pulls the reader out of the story. They say: "that isn't how someone would really say that in Italian," or "that isn't how a retinal scan really works," or "that isn't where Circus Circus is on the Las Vegas strip" and all of these are things that pull a reader out of the story. And yes, those are all things we had to ask ourselves about and research for our book to make sure we got them right. 

So, the question becomes, what does having a Pope Francis in our book do in this situation? Does it pull the reader out? Does every time someone comes upon his name, will they lose track of the story and begin to think about how our character relates to the real Pope? From what I have already read about the new pope, I think it is safe to say that our Pope Francis could not possibly be more different from the real Pope Francis. He is a compassionate reformer, someone who cares for children, is a strong purporter of the traditions of the church, gave up living in a mansion and rides the bus to work. Ours is ruthless, despises the people he is to watch over, and cares more for filthy lucre than anything else. 
So, what to do? We'll figure it out short term how we want to progress with this. Long term, though, we are going to keep writing, keep creating, and hoping our books find a wide market. These are the sort of unexpected twists and turns that make writing so interesting and so much fun. I have to say, though, of everyone I thought could possibly help us get our books out into the world, I never thought it would be the Catholic Pope. You can't make this stuff up, which is why life is so wonderful. I'll try to add another post here in a few days to let you know where we decided to go with all of this. 

Barnes and Noble - We Love You!

What a great night last night! Mike and I attended a local author night at Barnes and Noble. We started at seven and actually closed the place down after 10:00!!! We were busy the entire time, meeting some new friends and seeing lots of old friends. Here are a few pictures of some of the people that stopped by. We sold 15 copies of the book, but really the treat for us was getting to share the moment with good friends and family. We also got to know Tara (T.J. Silver), another Mbedzi author, and meet some other amazing authors with really great stories to tell. The best part of the night, perhaps, was when we were getting ready to leave and the store manager told us that we were the rock stars of the evening. If by rock stars, you mean I hugged more people than all of the rest of the authors, including Mike, combined, then I guess that I was a rock star! At the end, we actually had a great conversation with Amanda Zhorne, the community relations manager, about how to get the book on their shelves. So, all things considered, it couldn't have been better. We love writing, don't get me wrong, but man, we absolutely love being out with our fans and sharing a great evening together.

 

Mike Hadenfeldt - the most interesting man in Cedar Rapids!

My cousin Melissa and my friend John. Honestly, try to find nicer, smarter, cooler people - you won't find anyone better than these guys!

Sydnei, who I think loves our book more than us. She is reading it for the second time and can't wait for us to get the next book (s) out. We're working for you, Sydnei!

With Tara (T.J. Silver) who is another author from Mbedzi publishing. I started her book, the Secret of Shadow, last night. She's right, she can write!

The Young's, who besides being very good looking are also culturally sophisticated and very intelligent. And now that they are owners of Hade's Gambit, they have just taken it to the next level!

Good Reads Book Giveaway Promotion

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Hade's Gambit

by Michael Koogler

Giveaway ends September 09, 2012.
See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Here is a link for you to check out a promotion we are doing at Goodreads. We are giving away five, signed copies of our book ending on September 9th. Even if you have already purchased a copy of the book, feel free to sign up - if you win, you can give it to a friend as a present or donate it to a local library or even use it for household jobs. We are so proud of the book, we just wanted to share it with the world, and we thought this was a good way to do it. If you aren't on goodreads, check it out - it is a lot of fun and you'll find all sorts of great books to read - including Hade's Gambit!

Reading the book outloud (on the cheap)!

One of the fun things for me is finding new ways to get the book, or part of the book, out to the world. So, I'm trying to find a good way to record parts of the book (for now - eventually we want to do the entire book!). This is my first try - it is the prologue. I found an app on my ipad that allows me to record audio, then drop it into a dropbox, than upload it to itunes. Of course, somehow I can't figure out a way to make it just appear seamlessly, so what I'm including here is a link to a website with the prologue. It isn't fantastic, and it takes about a minute or so to download (so if you are trying this, wait for a bit for it to work), but it gives you a sense of the book and it is a good start. Unfortunately, one of the small problems with being a new author is knowing there is all sorts of cool things to do to help get the message out there, but also knowing that if you want to do something really well you have to pay. I did all of this for about 3 dollars for the app (dropbox and blogger are free!), so pretty economical. But the fact that it is pretty unwieldy and a bit staticy shows some of the limitations. Anyway, enjoy the prologue!

Prologue

The Blind Leading the Comicon

We are getting ready for Comicon and we think we know what we are doing. Which means, for us, that we have absolutely no idea what we are doing. Here is what we know. We know that Mike went last year and scouted the place out. He met Bruce Campbell (I think that is right), and a few other people, and talked with some artists about our book. He has some ideas on things to do, and since he has been there, well, who are we to argue? We know that we have talked to a few people who have gone there, including an artist/writer named Alan Knave that my sister got me in contact with. His suggestion? Have a big banner, keep it simple, and do what you can to make people want to come to your booth. He also said to have plastic bags to hand out, but we don't have nearly enough time to get those taken care of. Next year! We know it is in Chicago and that we have hotel reservations just across the street. Yeah, that is about all we really know.
So, what are we planning on doing? We are going to bring around 50 books with us to sell. We are making up bookmarks (my cousin Melissa is working on them for us!), and have purchased 600 silicon bracelets that say Hade's Gambit on them to hand out. We are going to order t-shirts to wear, I ordered a banner to put up, and we are going to sell, sell, sell!!! We thought about bottled water with Hade's Gambit on it, and temporary tattoos, but we just aren't sure how many people are going to come visit us. We are hoping to hook up with famous people, including William Shatner and Stan Lee, and mostly just to hang out and have a good time. If we sell 4 books or 40 books doesn't really matter. If we can get our book into the hands of a couple of important people, that could change things for us. Well, at least that is what we hope! So, it could end up being an amazing thing, or it could end up be slightly less amazing, but either way, it is going to be awesome! We'll have a great time meeting people, working together, and just having fun. Two and a half weeks, but I can't wait!!!

Who do we love? Iowa City!!!

What a great weekend!!! We had a book signing at the Haunted Book Shop on Friday the 13th! We had about 50 people come out. Then on Sunday we gave a presentation on the good and bad of trying to find a publisher (our short answer- it is good!). There were about 20 people there. The main difference between the two was that on Friday night there were about 5 to 7 people there who weren't family or friends and on Sunday it was all people who we didn't know. It was really exciting because both experiences were very different. The first one included lots of personal stories. My mom, wife and children came, Karen our publisher and her husband and a lot of friends were there, and Clayton and his parents were there. We talked about how we grew to become writers, how we came together and how we wrote the book. We had lots and lots and lots of fun, and were told by the owner afterwards that she was so happy to hear so much laughter in her store. Afterwards we went out to dinner with Karen, her husband Phil, and some of their friends from Tipton. I had a great time and learned a lot, most importantly thatI need a favorite Axe and a few pygmaies. So, that was great! Sunday we shared less personal stories and really focused on the process of getting a book published. It was a very different message, but still a lot of fun. There was laughing, knowledged shared, and knowledge gained. We met some fantastic people and had a great time sharing our story. Thanks to those who came out and supported us. It was a great weekend!

This is us at the Haunted Book Shop! It was standing room only. This is after the reading was over and we were busy shamelessly selling copies of our books. We sold over 20 copies - thanks to those who bought one (or two!)

We met a great young author named Jenna who also bought a book. It was fun talking to her and encouraging her to keep writing. There is nothing more exciting in the world than giving advice to young writers! I hope she does well!

Proof that we were there. I wasn't able to get a picture, but they had one of these on the counter to order drinks and someone had put an I next to Jed. So, I was JedI Peterson - pretty cool!!!

This is Mike. I just wanted to take a picture showing how we are selling books out of the back of our car. As we were walking in, I asked if Stephen King ever did something like this, and Mike was pretty convinced that he had, so I felt cooler about what we were doing. What a fantastic weekend! The only thing that would have made it better would have been if Jaren was there, but we'll see him next month at Comicon!

Why amazon.com has helped me sell my book and ruined my life in the process

The truth of the world we live in is that if you want to publish a book, amazon.com has to be a part of your life. There really is no way around it. And that is the best and worst thing for an author. Our book, Hade's Gambit, hit amazon.com last week, and since it isn't in stores, people have to buy it online. And, of course, the mere fact that people can buy our book is a wonderful thing. The process itself of getting the book online has been a fairly simple and painless one from an author's perspective. It just sort of shows up one day, and all of a sudden you are a published author. Pretty cool!

There were some bumps as it got started going, but only for those of us watching the site constantly and wanting everything up and running like, I don't know, five minutes ago. Once it showed up, the book was not available to purchase (out of stock), but after a while the book became available, although at this writing they still don't have the artwork up for our book (we were told if it isn't there after 90 days to contact them...). And now, after a week, they have discounted the hard cover from 32.00 down to 29.75, so that is good! They seem to be keeping the book in stock as well. I guess what happens is that our publisher contracted with Lightning Source, the actual printer of the book. When amazon.com feels that they can sell some books, they send for a box of 20 paperbacks and 8 hard covers, and so they have it on stock. You can go on and see, for example, that on Monday there were 5 copies left of the paperback, and on Tuesday there were 2, so we must have sold three books!

So now you are wondering, where has amazon.com ruined your life? The answer is found in one little number found in the descriptive part of the book. They tell you who wrote it, who the publisher is, how many pages it is, etc., etc., and they also include the book's ranking on amazon.com. Ah... that little number, so meaningless, so vital, so ruinous to a person with borderline obsessive compulsive behavior! The number tells you how your book is doing in relation to all of the other books it sells. I would love it if there was a Mr. Irrelevant for this list - the absolute highest number on their list. But, you really don't know where the list ends. Are there 450,000 books, 4.5 million books? Is there a green zone, where those books are considered a success, a yellow zone for maybe, or a red zone for just awful? Are we in the majors, the minors, or just playing streetball with our neighbors? It is impossible to tell. But, if that was the only problem with that number, it wouldn't be terrible. The real problem is that the number never stays still for more than a few hours, and it swings about more wildly than a monkey on prozac.

The truth of the matter is that you become forced to check amazon.com hourly to see what your number is. We started around 240,000 (again, who has any idea what this means!), than moved up and down and up and down and up and down. We would be at 140,000 one day, than later that day we would be at 120,000, than all the way down to 79,000, than suddenly back up to 212,000. All in the space of one day. And then, horror of all horrors, was the moment that I realized they were tracking the book seperately for hard cover and paperback editions. Why would they do that to me! Are they out of the same pool, or different pools? Are the two versions of my one book competing against each other? If we had gone without the hard cover, would we be competing with Twilight, Hunger Games and 50 Shades of Grey right now? Or are we competing against a self-published cook book from an old woman named Marge who lives in northern Alaska, and having two books is helping us out? Oh yeah, take that Marge! I have found myself shouting at that number (now numbers) for them to give me some sort of understanding, some guidance on how I should feel about them, but they are maddeningly unresponsive. Perhaps this is why I never really liked math. Or women named Marge.

And all you can do is watch and see your emotions go up and down like a roller coaster that has flown off the track. When the number goes down, you think yeah! We are on fire - the world is going to love our book!!! At that moment I want to call all the people who have bought my book and personally thank them for making me a true American success story. Scotish mansions and tropical islands here we come! When the number bounces back up, you freak out. Oh no, what happened! Did we do something wrong? Are we failures? Are we on the fast track to living under a bridge and fighting with a man named Hobo Joe over a rusted out can of beans? Probably not, but still, the thought enters your mind. And I want to call all my friends and family (and random people in the phonebook) who I know have not bought my book and beg them for a reason why. Why! In reality, all that really happened is that we sold two books in the morning, than perhaps none in the afternoon, while thousands of other titles each sold one or two copies later that day. To a new author, with high anxiety and little information to go on, and even knowing that it is completely meaningless, you can't stop looking at that number. It is like an addiction of the worst kind! And the number just sits there mocking you, daring you to refresh your browser. You find yourself secretly thinking that Desomond on Lost had it easy. He only had to push the button every 108 minutes, and couldn't push it any earlier. I have to push the button every 1.08 minutes. I also have found that I have to do this alone, for some reason, because I have found myself more than once saying "big bucks, big bucks, no wammies!" as I refresh the page, bracing myself for the joy or heartache. Yeah, best to not let the kids see that one.

And, just to prove that I cannot control my new refreshing fetish, I just checked right now, and we are at about 203,000 for paperback, 114,000 for hardcover. A few days ago, we were at 79,000 in paperback and 22,000 for hardcover. Tomorrow, who knows? And in a week or two we will have the ebook come out and we will have a new drug for our addiction. I will have three numbers to check. If you see me on the street later this year, wearing my bathrobe, my fingernails unclipped and my feet in very large kleenex boxes, muttering to myself about book ratings and radioactive mice, just walk on by. You'll know I'm a new author, and you'll know I sell my book on amazon.com. Don't pity me, I jumped into this boat of my own free will, and I'm so glad amazon.com is helping sell Hade's Gambit. I just wish I could get my old life back. And now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go check out my numbers again.

Belle Plaine!

What a great day!!! Mike and I drove over to Belle Plaine, Iowa, on July 3rd for our first official signing / reading / discussion about our new book, Hade's Gambit. We stopped by the library to check in, then had lunch with the kids who came (Brandon and Annika) at the Lincoln Cafe. It was about 100 degrees out, so we were happy to stay indoors and talk about our book. Check out the pictures!!!

This is a stack of our books. Man, isn't that cover just the bomb! Seriously, it is super awesome. We will be giving a shout out to Clayton for the rest of our lives for how sweet this cover looks! 

Mike and I behind our table. And yes, real authors wear blue!

I don't always sign books, but when I do, I sign Hade's Gambit. Stay thirsty, my friends!

We discussed the book briefly, talking about what it is all about and explaing what we wanted people to think about it - mostly we want them to think they like it.



Mike read a cool part all about Belle Plaine. We read about the Lincoln Cafe, about the characters in that chapter, and about the cemetery, where important events occur. Since we were in Belle Plaine, it went over very well!

All in all, the reading can only be considered a success!!! We sold over 30 books (including my mother's, which was fine - at least she told me it was fine!), signed them all, and had a blast. I'll put up video that my daugher Annika took of us soon. We answered lots of questions, including if people who don't like zombies would like our book (yes), who did the awesome cover (Clayton!), how was it working with three authors (the best of times and the worst of times) and what would the book have been like if only one of you had written it (my answer - if it was Mike, it would have been awful, if it was me, it still would have been pretty good!). But, in all honesty, the best part was seeing all of Mike's family and friends come out to support us. Belle Plaine is a truly great place, and we wouldn't have put it in our book if we weren't hoping that someday tourists would come to Belle Plaine hoping to eat at the Lincoln Cafe and tour the cemetery. They rewarded us on the 3rd by treating us like rock stars, proving even more so that they deserve to be recognized for being truly special. So, yeah Belle Plaine, yeah Mike Koogler and Jaren Riley, and yeah Hade's Gambit!!!What a great way to start off our Book Tour!!!

P.S. Look for a post in the near future from Mike about Belle Plaine as well!

At a distance

I wanted to write a bit tonight to explain how easy, and how difficult, it is to write a book with two other people, neither of which lives in the same city as you. I live in Cedar Rapids Iowa (the City of Five Seasons!), Mike lives in Iowa City (well, actually Coralville), and Jaren is now in the big city of Denver (and still morning the loss of Tim Tebow). Mike and I are only about 20 to 25 minutes away from each other, which is more than conducive to getting together from time to time, but Jaren is a good deal farther away. So, in order to communicate with each other face to face (sort of), we have gotten to the point where now Mike will come over to my place, or I will head over to Mike's, and we will facetime with Jaren. Here are a few photos of us doing this. I am actually texting Jaren's wife Jessie as she is taking our picture in the second one. Yeah, that is how advanced we are :) This was taken a few months ago- I think we were discussing how Hade was going to dress up as a butterfly in a flashback of his days in ballet school.

One night, we actually all needed to chat with our publisher, Karen, so we set up facetime, and put my ipad in the middle of Mike and I on the couch, and then set up my laptop with a Skype session. We realized at that moment that while this worked, it was a bit clumsy. So, we are looking into other technology for the three of us to work together, and there is a lot out there. Some options are google plus, others are webinar based, like Adobe Connect Pro, and then there is the oldie but goodie of tying tin cans together and stretching them between us. Yeah, that third one isn't a very good option, but the other two have proven possibilities.

The problem with working with people in other cities is simply one of communication. We had some issues with our edits last fall because we were communicating via email for everything! While email is great for some things, it absolutely sucks for having a sustained, creative conversation about whether our character Petr should stab an undead opponent through the heart first, and then through the eye, or go the other way around, with the eye first and then the heart. Well, that was only one dicussion, but we had tons of them. And what we found, is that it is really easy to bicker and argue about who killed who when you can't see or hear the person you are dealing with. Mike and I would fight like crazy, sending each other nasty emails, and then we would call each other and be fine in about 10 seconds. So, we learned the hard way that in dealing with important issues, nothing beats real conversation, even if it is streaming live over an ipad.

Now, the past month we have been working furiously on book two, but we are still in the "just get it down on the computer and we'll deal with the consequences later" mode. So, for example, Jaren sent us a great chapter today where some of the characters are attacked in the desert. They then have this amazing discussion about the nature of God and mercy v. justice. It is super hard core stuff, and I loved it. Of course, it is 33 pages long, and Mike and I haven't even touched it! But, we will probably just leave it as is after a few notes, and move on to the next chapter. Once we get most of the first half of the book done, then we will go through and really start working through these chapters, and at that point we are going to make sure that we have our communication system up and running smoothly, because we are not going to make the mistakes we made the first tiime around.

So, the question we often get asked is how do three of you write a book together, and the answer is carefully, thoughtfully, and most importantly, with live, synchronous communication. We got together in Denver a month ago and worked our way entirely through the synopsis of book two, a process that took us a day together, and would have been a monthlong nightmare apart. We are always better when we are together, so that is what we are going to do as much as possible in the future. So, it is definitely possible to write a book with two other people who live in other cities, but you have to do it right or it will be a disaster. Of course, it helps to have great human beings to work with, but we can save that for another blog.  

Join us in Chicago in August at Comic Con!

So, now that the book is ofiicially sort of out, I am planning on going back and doing some of the blogging that I wanted to do over the past months but have been too busy to do. So, look for little tidbits most days, and longer posts about fun stories, important events, and other news at least once or twice a week. I'll try to have something really fun on Mondays, so stop by and check it out! I am including a link to the Chicago Comic Con website. We will be there August 9 through the 12, in our own booth hanging out and selling copies of our book. It is the big event of the summer for us, so if you are in the area stop by and come visit us!!! If you scroll near to the bottom of the page, you will see Mike, Jaren and Jed, all individually, with a blub about us and our book. It is near the bottom because they have actors first, and then comic drawers / toy makers / authors (there aren't a lot of us authors there) below, and it is in alphabetical order. But, we will be hanging out with Stan Lee, William Shatner, John Cena, The Situation, Draco Malfoy, Scott Bakula, James Hong, Bruce Campbell, and Luke Perry, amongst dozens of other important people. Just the fact that my name is on the same website as those people is pretty cool! Anyway, look for a longer post on Monday all about how to write a book with two other people at a distance!