Archive for The Darkening Dream

Dream a Little Dream

Feb10

The e-book versions of The Darkening Dream will be on sale for only 99 cents this week through at least Friday February 14th! Take the plunge, it’s certainly a great deal. And if anything celebrates Valentines right, it’s a little succubus on psychopath action (villains, of course).

Buy it on Amazon!

Tweet, share, like, follow, blog and grab a copy of my book.

Plus, if you don’t like to read and only want to listen, there is always the new audiobook version.

Listen to a free sample if you like:

Or buy the Audiobook at:

Amazon, Audible, or iTunes

Also, on the publishing front, The Audiobook version of Untimed is almost done, and I just wrapped up the 5th or 6th (and hopefully “final”) draft of the screenplay. Plus, 175+ pages of notes into my secret new novel.

About The Darkening Dream

As the Nineteenth Century gives way to the Twentieth, modern science and steel girders leave little room for the supernatural. But in dark corners the old forces still gather. God, demon, and sorcerer alike plot to regain what was theirs in Andy Gavin’s chilling debut, The Darkening Dream.

With the help of Alex, a Greek immigrant who knows a startling amount about the undead, Sarah sets out to uncover the truth. Their quest takes them to Salem’s brutal factory workrooms, on a clandestine maritime mission, and down into their foe’s nightmarish crypt. But they aren’t prepared for the terrifying backlash that brings the fight back to their own homes and families. Can Alex’s elderly, vampire-hunting grandfather and Sarah’s own rabbi father help protect them? And what do Sarah’s darkening visions reveal?

No less than the Archangel Gabriel’s Horn, destined to announce the End of Days, is at stake, and the forces banded to recover it include a 900 year-old vampire, a trio of disgruntled Egyptian gods, and a demon-loving Puritan minister. At the center of this swirling conflict is Sarah, who must fight a millennia-old battle against unspeakable forces, knowing the ultimate prize might be herself.

“Gorgeously creepy, strangely humorous, and sincerely terrifying” — Publishers Weekly

“Wonderfully twisted sense of humor” and

“A vampire novel with actual bite” — Kirkus Reviews

“Steampunk Lovecraftian Horror by way of Joss Whedon”

Buy Sample Characters Reviews Reviewer Info

By: agavin
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Posted in: Darkening Dream

Tagged as: ACX.com, Audible, audiobook, iTunes, sale, The Darkening Dream

Hark, I hear The Darkening Dream

Oct30

Ten months in the making, The Darkening Dream audiobook is finally ready!

The complete unabridged book is available on Audible, Amazon, and iTunes for MP3 download to your phone or ipod. It’s narrated by producers Marti Dumas (female parts) and Eric Pollard (male parts).

A bit about the production

I started way back in January, and like most Independent authors considering an audiobook edition, decided to use Amazon’s ACX service. This is a marketplace for connecting authors with voice and production talent as well as an automated mechanism for delivering the finished books to the big online markets (Audible, Amazon, and iTunes). This makes it easy to post descriptions of what your looking for and a section of the book to read. I listed both The Darkening Dream and Untimed. Lo and behold, over the next couple of weeks a pile of auditions started to come in.

ACX has a couple of options and it’s important to get them squared away BEFORE you pick a production team as they make it difficult to change after the fact (I know from experience). You can go either Exclusive or Non-exclusive. Retaining the right to sell through some other market (and remember they hit all the big online markets) earns you a much lower royalty rate (about half). Also, you can chose to pay your production team either as a fixed dollar amount per finished hour or as a percentage of royalties. Obviously royalties involve less up front costs on the part of the author, but I suspect that far less voice talent is interested in taking those terms as earn outs for Indie books are probably very variable. I went for pay up front exclusive.

The Darkening Dream is a tricky novel from a recording standpoint as it has seven different points of view, of both genders, and given that the protagonist is a young woman and several of the POVs are nasty male villains, I couldn’t imagine either a man or a woman reading both. Luckily, I found a talented pair who works together and we began production last winter. However, I wasn’t totally prepared for how long it would take and how much work it was on both sides.

Marti (left) and Eric (right) finishing up a recording session with a glass of al-Nasir’s blood

First of all, it’s important to prepare very detailed notes on all your characters. TDD has a big cast, many with varied accents and histories, and not all are even human. Each of the POVs had to sound distinct and in the authentic voice of that character. After my team studied my character sheets and we discussed each character, we created a number of voice tests for the major parts. I listened and then gave feedback. This is a broad pattern that continues through the process. Prep -> Record -> Listen -> Feedback -> Repeat.

As I’ve experimented in many mediums: video games, novels, screenplays, and now audiobooks, it’s worth noting some of the differences. The physical placement on the page (as dictated by white space) is useful in novels. I separate dialog spoken by different people on different lines, and I make sure to place tags (he said, she said) and beats (small action queues like “Alex shifted in place” or “Sarah smirked” in the same paragraph as the speaker’s dialog. In an audiobook, you can’t hear the white space, but differences in voicing can make up for who is speaking. Still, you lose this spatial grouping. The tags also stand out more when spoken, as the eye tends to ignore them.

Another thing I hadn’t thought about is how long it actually takes to listen repeatedly to an entire novel. TDD is over eleven hours and every few weeks I’d get an hour or two of recordings, need to listen — usually twice (paying attention!) — and write up notes. And my side of the work was a lot easier than Marti and Eric’s. I can only imagine how long it took to record multiple takes, audition them, edit, then proof.

With the multiple voices, TDD sounds a tad like an audioplay, which is rather cool, and a few of the supernatural elements needed sound effects. We kept this to a minimum, because once you head down that rabbit hole, who knows where it leads — but the mystical horn (readers will know what I’m talking about) and the vampire glamour both begged for a little special treatment.

Then, as the months rolled by, chapter by chapter, the book came together brilliantly. I’ve listened to it between 2-3 times — although not all together at once. I’m curious at the psychological effect, but after reading various drafts over 50 times and a couple listens, I’ll leave that to you guys!

Listen to a free sample if you like:

Or buy the Audiobook at:

Amazon, Audible, or iTunes

Buy Sample Characters Reviews Reviewer Info

By: agavin
Comments (1)

Posted in: Darkening Dream

Tagged as: Amazon, Amazon.com, Audible, audiobook, Eric Pollard, horror, iTunes, Marti Dumas, The Darkening Dream

Summer Night’s Dream Sale

Jun03

The e-book versions of The Darkening Dream will be on sale for only 99 cents this week until Friday June 7th! Take the plunge, it’s certainly a great deal.

Buy it on Amazon!

Tweet, share, like, follow, blog and grab a copy of my book.

Also, on the publishing front, The Audiobook versions for both my novels are in production and am finished with the fourth draft of the Untimed screenplay!

About The Darkening Dream

“Gorgeously creepy, strangely humorous, and sincerely terrifying” — Publishers Weekly

“Wonderfully twisted sense of humor” and

“A vampire novel with actual bite” — Kirkus Reviews

“Steampunk Lovecraftian Horror by way of Joss Whedon”

Buy Sample Characters Reviews Reviewer Info

By: agavin
Comments (0)

Posted in: Darkening Dream

Tagged as: Andy Gavin, E-book, Kirkus Reviews, Lovecraftian horror, The Darkening Dream

Dream Sale

Mar04

The e-book versions of The Darkening Dream will be on sale for only 99 cents this week until Friday March 8th! Take the plunge, it’s certainly a great deal.

Buy it on Amazon!

Tweet, share, like, follow, blog and grab a copy of my book.

Also, on the publishing front, I have Audiobooks for both my novels in production and am finished with the first draft of the Untimed screenplay! But, being a first draft, it needs plenty of work.

About The Darkening Dream

“Gorgeously creepy, strangely humorous, and sincerely terrifying” — Publishers Weekly

“Wonderfully twisted sense of humor” and

“A vampire novel with actual bite” — Kirkus Reviews

“Steampunk Lovecraftian Horror by way of Joss Whedon”

Buy Sample Characters Reviews Reviewer Info

By: agavin
Comments (0)

Posted in: Darkening Dream

Tagged as: Andy Gavin, Audiobooks, Promotion, sale, Screenplay, The Darkening Dream

Thanksgiving Dream – only $0.99

Nov20

To celebrate Thanksgiving, the Kindle version of The Darkening Dream is on sale for only 99 cents from Wednesday November 20 until Friday the 30th! Take the plunge, it’s certainly a great deal.

Buy it on Amazon!

Tweet, share, like, follow, blog and grab a copy of my book.

About The Darkening Dream

“Gorgeously creepy, strangely humorous, and sincerely terrifying” — Publishers Weekly

“Wonderfully twisted sense of humor” and

“A vampire novel with actual bite” — Kirkus Reviews

“Steampunk Lovecraftian Horror by way of Joss Whedon”

Buy Sample Characters Reviews Reviewer Info

By: agavin
Comments (0)

Posted in: Darkening Dream

Tagged as: 99 cents, Amazon Kindle, Andy Gavin, Darkening Dream, Novel, one dollar, sale, Thanksgiving sale, The Darkening Dream, vampires

Harvard Divinity

Oct17

As readers of The Darkening Dream are aware, nothing is ever black or white. Certainly this is the case with Pastor John Parris. Is he a villain or victim? Well… villain, but even the most evil come from somewhere. In this short story, which began life as a chapter in an older larger versions of the novel, we explore some important questions about the creepy little man: 1) How did he come to dabble in witchcraft? 2) Who was Grandmother Grace, and what was the manner of her unpleasant death? 3) Is shit really useful for spellcraft? And most importantly, 4) When did Parris meet his succubus lover, Betty?

It turns out, one weekend reveals all four.

I’m publishing this in short story for free as part of this year’s Fiction Frolic.

Read the story here.

By: agavin
Comments (0)

Posted in: Darkening Dream

Tagged as: Andy Gavin, Arts, Fiction, John Parris, Online Writing, Short Stories, Short story, The Darkening Dream

BlogTalkRadio Interview

Aug22

Yesterday I did a really fun one hour radio interview on BlogTalkRadio about The Darkening Dream, with tangents into writing, video games, TV, and all that good stuff. You can find the page for it here, or listen directly below (click the play button).

By: agavin
Comments (2)

Posted in: Darkening Dream

Tagged as: Andy Gavin, Arts, Blog Talk Radio, BlogTalkRadio, interview, radio, Talk radio, The Darkening Dream

Video Games, Novels, and Ideas

Aug01

Since I’ve created thirteen video games and written two novels I’m often asked how the process compares between the two. This is a complex topic, but here goes one stab at it, focusing on the generation of the idea.

The idea part 1: The What

Both games and novels start with a basic idea, and it’s essential to focus on what’s important. In both cases, this is a creative process, imagining something blurry and only partially formed that calls out to you.

Games are about gameplay, so this is then a question of gameplay genre. Not the Horror vs Mystery type of genre, but what kind of game is it. Generally you start with one of the proven gameplay types: Platformer, shooter, driving game, sports game, etc and then try to bring something new to the table. For Crash Bandicoot, this was “character platform game in the vein of Donkey Kong Country, but in full 3D” (there were no 3D platform games when we started).

This was not easy in 1995!

With novels, the core idea is also genre, but the meaning of this is different. In starting The Darkening Dream, I had this image come into my head – and some might consider me disturbed – of a dead tree silhouetted against an orange sky, a naked body bound to it, disemboweled, and bleeding out. The sound of a colossal horn or gong blares. The blood glistens black in the sunset light. Bats circle the sky and wolves bay in the distance. But sacrifice isn’t just about killing. It’s a contract. Someone is bargaining with the gods. Complex ideas are the intersection of multiple smaller ideas. To this I brought a desire to reinvent the classic Buffyesque story of “a group of teens fight for their lives against a bunch of supernatural baddies trying to destroy the world.” But the twist is that I wanted to ground all of the magic and supernatural in “real” researched historical occult. This defined the book as a kind of supernatural thriller from the get go.

The idea part 2: The Who and Where

Part 1 gives you a core, or germ, of the project, but to start moving with it you need setting.

Again, looking at The Darkening Dream I had this disturbing image in mind. This was a vampire moment, but not exactly your typical one. For years, I’d been noodling on my own private vampire mythos, grounded in a kind of religio-historical thinking. Coppola’s Dracula, for example, has Vlad’s dark power grounded in rage and the Christian god forsworn. But I liked the idea that the most ancient of vampires was far older than Christ, perhaps older than civilization itself. This got me thinking about Neolithic religion. Pre-civilized peoples were essentially shamanistic. The shaman (sometimes called a Witch Doctor) interfaces between the people and hidden powers, both wondrous and terrible. What if one of these men, millennia ago, struck a dark bargain: blood for life. And so was born the idea of the vampire blood gods, dark deities of old forests, of sacrifices bleeding on trees, of gnashy gnashy teeth, slick with blood. This held the key to a ancient vampire explanation grounded in belief. Gods created and fed on faith, instead of the other way around. And the blood gods are not alone. Other ancient gods might still linger, diminished, but still powerful. There seemed a natural synergy between their fate and the syncretistic quality of human religion. As the belief changes, so does the object of said belief.

This meta-idea is very complex, a kind of world setting rooted in history, but reaching back to basics, novels are fundamentally about protagonist and the drama generated by the obstruction of their desire by opposing forces (often antagonist). I tend to think of the antagonists first, but this is a little backward. I knew I wanted a teenage girl, mostly for reasons of contrast with these sinister villains. She too, should be a dabbler in some school of occult-religious power. I like the idea of magic involving hard work and study, call it bookworm power, so I conceived of this studious girl, kind of an older Hermione Granger, daughter of a scholar father with a hidden past. As a heroine, she seeks to use her growing skills to “do the right thing” but all such power if fraught with danger, and her naivety gets her in way over her head.

This magical-religious thinking lead me to a conflict between the old (superstitious?) way of thinking and the modern (technological?) world. I was drawn to a number of cusp points, but settled on the eve of World War I. That war changed the human political landscape, completing the process of casting down King and Church that had been ongoing since the Reformation. It also provided an era with significant room for sequels (WWI, WWII, cold war, etc.) and a freedom from cheap plotting shortcuts like mobile phones and the internet.

The first real Crash

With Crash Bandicoot, the notion of setting was much simpler, but no less important. Back in 1994 when we were visualizing our 3D platform game we wanted to follow in the tradition of using a quasi-animal character. Various factors led us to a sort of Looney Tunes style character design and world. In the early 90s, voice for video game characters was technologically dicey and tended to be cheesy, so we thought to convey strong personality through animation. We also liked the idea of taking a real animal that had a distinct name, yet one rare enough that few people knew what it looked like. In this way, we hoped to “hijack” the animals name and have our character become representative of this real animal. This quest for a cute, well named, and rare animal led us to the Bandicoot, and hence to an isolated island setting full of exotic animals. In the cartoon space it seemed natural for the villain to be an evil genius, misunderstood, surrounded by idiot minions that bungle his brilliant plans :-). Doctor Neo Cortex was born. Since normal rodents are a bit mousy, and not necessarily that cool, we gave him the Evolve-O-Ray program in which he was “enhancing” the animal life of his island. Crash took form as the goofy “bungled” product of these experiments, fighting, in his goofy way, to protect the natural world from this renegade scientific program.

Snowball on the hill

Once you work out the basic creative concept for a big project, the rest of the ideas tend to flow outward from these first principles.

In world of The Darkening Dream I drew on historical and religious settings, people, magics, and sects to provide allies and enemies, creating their motivations out of their own peculiar frameworks. With Crash, the cartoon style of the world and the practical needs of the platform game drove decisions. Platform games (and many other game types) have Bosses and Sub-bosses. If Neo Cortex is the boss, then he needed henchmen (mutated animals and lab assistants) and middle management (the various Sub-boss animals). His island needed varied settings (read variety), but it was a jungle island, so this led us to island-compatible settings like beach, jungle, caves, etc.

In previous posts I discussed the differing importance of story to novels and video games, the origins of the magic in The Darkening Dream, and the history of Crash Bandicoot. Sometime in the future, I’ll probably continue this series by talking about production itself.

By: agavin
Comments (15)

Posted in: Darkening Dream, Games

Tagged as: Andy Gavin, Bandicoot, Crash Bandicoot, Doctor Neo Cortex, Donkey Kong Country, Fiction, Games, Hermione Granger, Ideas, Neo Cortex, Platform game, The Darkening Dream

Big Giveaway Winners!

Jun30

The Darkening Dream$0.99 sale and giveaway week is over and was a resounding success. It’s time to announce the winners:

Grand Prize Winner: Amy Eye

$100 Amazon Gift Card, a signed paperback copy of The Darkening Dream, a signed copy of the video game Crash Bandicoot, a 13″x18″ poster of the book cover, collectable bookmarks

Second Prize Winners: Jay Uppal and Scott Pilgrim

Signed paperback copies of The Darkening Dream, a signed copy of the video game Crash Bandicoot, a 13″x18″ poster of the cover, collectable bookmarks

Third Prize Winners: Tanya, Ashley Williams, Amanda Artemis Speer, April Barger Hays, and Alicia Marie Ezell

Signed 13″x18″ posters of book cover, collectable bookmarks

Cool Name Award:

Amanda Artemis Speer

No additional prize, but being named after the goddess of the hunt is a prize all in itself, and backing that up with a last name that sounds like spear, which along with the bow is sometimes an attribute of the goddess: double cool!

But even with the sale over, you can still:

Buy the book on Amazon!

The official Rafflecopter widget is here:
a Rafflecopter giveaway

About The Darkening Dream

“Gorgeously creepy, strangely humorous, and sincerely terrifying” — Publishers Weekly

“Wonderfully twisted sense of humor” and

“A vampire novel with actual bite” — Kirkus Reviews

“Steampunk Lovecraftian Horror by way of Joss Whedon”

Buy Sample Characters Reviews Reviewer Info

By: agavin
Comments (3)

Posted in: Contests, Darkening Dream

Tagged as: Andy Gavin, Contest, Crash Bandicoot, Darkening Dream, Giveaway, Rafflecopter, The Darkening Dream

Big Giveaway!

Jun25

This week, Monday June 25 through Friday June 29, the Kindle version of my novel The Darkening Dream is on sale for just 99 cents!

Buy it on Amazon!

Check out what you can win and how:
a Rafflecopter giveaway

As you can see, there are lots of ways to earn points, and since it’s a random drawing (done by Rafflecopter.com) those with the most points have the highest chance of winning.

So tweet, share, like, follow, blog and grab a copy of my book to enter to win.

About The Darkening Dream

“Gorgeously creepy, strangely humorous, and sincerely terrifying” — Publishers Weekly

“Wonderfully twisted sense of humor” and

“A vampire novel with actual bite” — Kirkus Reviews

“Steampunk Lovecraftian Horror by way of Joss Whedon”

Buy Sample Characters Reviews Reviewer Info

By: agavin
Comments (10)

Posted in: Darkening Dream

Tagged as: 99 cents, Andy Gavin, Fiction, Giveaway, Novel, sale, Steampunk, The Darkening Dream, vampires

Round 2 Closed!

May31

I’ve official “sold” all 100 tickets in ROUND TWO of the Naughty Dark Contest. So I fired up the Ruby interpreter and asked it to compute the appropriate pseudorandom number, which turned out to be 3.

Counting from zero − I’m such a programmer − this turned out to be a ticket owned by Levi Tinney of California!

They chose the following prize: A signed ARC of The Darkening Dream! I threw in a bonus poster too.

A signed ARC of The Darkening Dream

But just because ROUND TWO is finished, doesn’t mean you can’t win. Check out the rules and get submitting, round three is open. As soon as it sells out another 100 tickets, there will be yet another drawing. And the special prizes are available to anyone, anytime!

Which speaking of, we have two new special prize winners:

Zac Mitchell of Sydney Australia

and

Matt Wallace from West Sussex England

For more info on the contest, a detailed list of prizes and rules can be found here!

The prizes are below:

Zac went for a signed Crash 1 and I threw in some extra stuff

Matt is a double special prize winner with signed Crash 1 & 2

By: agavin
Comments (2)

Posted in: Contests, Darkening Dream

Tagged as: ARC, California, Contest, Contests, Naughty Dark Contest, Prizes, The Darkening Dream

Award Time!

May24

I’m excited to announce that The Darkening Dream recently won some International Book Awards, including:

Winner: Best Cover Design- Fiction

and

Finalist: Fiction- Fantasy

I want to offer a shout out to my collaborators who helped with this: The cover artist Cliff Nielsen and cover designer Pete Garceau as well as my brilliant and hard working editors.

Find out more about the cover or the book.

And you should buy it if you haven't!

By: agavin
Comments (6)

Posted in: Darkening Dream

Tagged as: Andy Gavin, Cliff Nielsen, Cover art, Cover Design, Fantasy, International Book Awards, Literature, Science Fiction, The Darkening Dream

The Rules of Magic

Apr26

I ran across this extremely interesting and totally meta article on fantasy magic by Brandon Sanderson. I’ve had my own version of this kind of theory since the early 80s but he really spells it out.

He breaks magic systems down into how “hard” or “soft” they are. Meaning, how defined are their rules.

If you’re a writer working on your fantasy magic systems, I suggest that you decide what kind of feel you want for your magic. Do you like the techno-magic like you find in my books, or in books by L.E. Modesitt Jr. and Melanie Rawn? Do you like the hybrids like you find in someone more like David Eddings or J.K. Rowling? Or, do you prefer your magic to be more vague and mysterious, like you see in Tolkien or the George R. R. Martin books? I like to read works by all of these authors, but when I write, I prefer to have rules, costs, and laws to work with in my magic, and that makes it more fun for me.

By hard or techno-magic he means books like his own, or comic books, or video games (like WOW or Diablo), where the magic is a well defined tool. On the soft side are books like Tolkien with a more mythic feel. But what is particularly interesting is his insights into the narrative impact of magic.

Resist the urge to use magic to solve problems unless you’ve already explained and shown that aspect of how the magic works. Don’t give the heroes a new power whenever they need one, and be very careful about writing laws into your system just so that you can use them in a single particular situation. (This can make your magic seem flimsy and convenient, even if you HAVE outlined its abilities earlier.)

Very good advice. If your magic is soft enough that major new developments occur every time it is used, then you better NOT use it to solve problems. Or:

If you’re writing a soft magic system, ask yourself “How can they solve this without magic?” or even better, “How can using the magic to TRY to solve the problem here really just make things worse.” (An example of this: The fellowship relies on Gandalf to save them from the Balrog. Result: Gandalf is gone for the rest of that book.)

Semi-consciously, this is what I did in The Darkening Dream which has multiple complex magic systems that are not fully explained, and is hence a kind of middle-soft magic universe. The characters do use magic, but it rarely helps or pans out the way they want, and when it does, I’m generally using a power that I clearly set up before. The villains make heavier use of magic, and their systems are better defined. Still, things often go poorly. In this book I really wanted to give the magic a sense of weight. To make it clear that it was never free or easy and required years of study, practice, and consequences often far outweighing the long term benefits.

My second novel, Untimed, is in many ways closer to a hard magic system in that the time travel has very rigid rules. This (and the related villains) are the only “supernatural” element. I try to maintain my sense of mystery in a number of ways despite this increased definition. 1) The characters are young and alone and don’t know all the rules. 2) They find them out as they go and by trial and error (emphasis on the error). This is also useful to avoid bombarding the reader with too much infodump. 3) I keep the “how” this all came to be and the “why” the villains do what they do hidden throughout the first book.

To me, this balance of the feel of the mystical world is absolutely essential to fantasy writing. How much I like a story is heavily influenced by it, even if I am a fan of tales across the hard/soft spectrum. Like everything, execution is key.

Find Brandon Sanderson’s entire article here.

A detailed write up on the basis of the magic I used for The Darkening Dream is here.

By: agavin
Comments (7)

Posted in: Fiction, Writing

Tagged as: Balrog, Brandon Sanderson, David Eddings, Fantasy, Gandalf, George R. R. Martin, J. R. R. Tolkien, J.K. Rowling, Melanie Rawn, The Darkening Dream, Untimed

The Darkening Dream in Publishers Weekly

Apr07

The Darkening Dream is featured in Publishers Weekly, the “Special Spring Announcement” (i.e. the extra booklet ghetto where us Indie books go). Still, this is kinda cool. Will libraries and the like rush to order my hardcover from Ingram? It’s a nice looking hardcover, plus the book is good, so they ought too.

So far, most people choose the e-book or the paperback (and mostly the e-book).

You can see the listing in the lower right. It’s on the inside flap (back of the front cover). I even turned on returns at Ingram (gasp, I’m not a big fan of physical returns) so bookstores can order it without stressing their capital-shy selves. Time will tell!

But the real awesome thing is that in the regular issue this comes with

The Darkening Dream got a starred review!

These are very rare and hard to come by.

Gorgeously creepy, strangely humorous, and sincerely terrifying tale… Gavin’s prose has both beautifully dark and startlingly scary moments, and his characters and their behaviors are refreshingly authentic for the genre: young people who are impulsive and full of bravado; older magicians who are slow to act, but protect their children; and vampires, who though undone by ambition, old enmities, and greed, act like people who have the perspective of centuries of (un)living.

Read the full review here.

Check out more information about the book here.

By: agavin
Comments (1)

Posted in: Darkening Dream

Tagged as: Amazon Kindle, Amazon.com, Andy Gavin, Darkening Dream, E-book, Hardcover, Publishers Weekly, The Darkening Dream

The Darkening Dream – Free Today!

Apr02

The title pretty much says it all. The Darkening Dream, my dark fantasy novel, is free on Amazon for the Kindle for just 24 hours — all of April 3, 2012.

Download it here!

This is a special one day only promotion via Kindle KDP Select. Make sure to grab it while you can, tell your friends about it, and promote everywhere. At the end of Wednesday at midnight it will go back to its normal price. If it does well during the promotion Amazon will bump it up in their internal ranking and it should get a lot of regular sales afterward. That’s what happened last time.

A few words about the book:

1913, Salem, Massachusetts – Sarah Engelmann’s life is full of friends, books, and avoiding the pressure to choose a husband, until an ominous vision and the haunting call of an otherworldly trumpet shake her. When she stumbles across a gruesome corpse, she fears that her vision was more of a premonition. And when she sees the murdered boy moving through the crowd at an amusement park, Sarah is thrust into a dark battle she does not understand.

With the help of Alex, a Greek immigrant who knows a startling amount about the undead, Sarah sets out to uncover the truth. Their quest takes them to Salem’s brutal factory workrooms, on a clandestine maritime mission, and down into their foe’s nightmarish crypt. But they aren’t prepared for the terrifying backlash that brings the fight back to their own homes and families. Can Alex’s elderly, vampire-hunting grandfather and Sarah’s own rabbi father help protect them? And what do Sarah’s darkening visions reveal?

No less than the Archangel Gabriel’s Horn, destined to announce the End of Days, is at stake, and the forces banded to recover it include a 900 year-old vampire, a trio of disgruntled Egyptian gods, and a demon-loving Puritan minister. At the center of this swirling conflict is Sarah, who must fight a millennia-old battle against unspeakable forces, knowing the ultimate prize might be herself.

NOTE: Free downloads do not count toward tickets for the Naughty Dark Contest.

By: agavin
Comments (2)

Posted in: Darkening Dream

Tagged as: Amazon, Amazon Kindle, Andy Gavin, Dark fantasy, Darkening Dream, free, Kindle, Promotion, The Darkening Dream

The Call – Down the Rabbit Hole

Mar29

On Tuesday I got the call. (Technically, I’d gotten the call a couple of times before, but this time it was from someone that fit)

Backing up. Two months ago I sent a small blast of query letters regarding Untimed to a few top literary agents. Unlike a couple years ago when I did this for The Darkening Dream, I only sent them to people I was really interested in, and I didn’t engage emotionally (a few rounds of arbitrary rejection will inure you to that peril).

Untimed is more high concept than TDD, so my full request rate was a stellar 20%!

Eddie Schneider of JABberwocky sent this short email two weeks in:

Please send over the manuscript — this is definitely something I’m interested in!

Short – but sweet. So I sent the manuscript (about 30 seconds later). A month after that I got a note that he was reading and “so far, so good.” Then I flew off to the Maldives (in the Indian Ocean) for my friend and business partner Jason Rubin’s wedding (totally awesome BTW, pic here). In the back of my head there was that usual hope/worry thing, that voice that alternately mumbles “it’s a great book” and “probably, just another rejection.” Remember, of course, that publishing and literature are hugely subjective and even Harry Potter and A Wrinkle in Time were rejected countless times.

But on Monday, when I saw an email from him in my mailbox I somehow knew it was positive (of course I “knew” this on several previous occasions too…). But this time I was right.

In any case, I had a great (and long) phone chat with Eddie and we hit it off. And I like the intuitive feel of Jabberwocky. First of all their website is awfulagent.com – obviously they have a bit of a sense of humor – and second they represent a large stable of “real” science fiction and fantasy authors. Authors I’ve read like Charlaine Harris, Brandon Sanderson (my Way of Kings review here), Elizabeth Moon (I read her gritty military fantasy series way way back and loved it), and more recently Mark Hodder (my Spring-Heeled Jack review here). Eddie likes video games and graphic novels and got excited when I started talking about Julian the Apostate (more on that here). No one gets excited about Julian the Apostate.

And did I mention that he thinks Untimed is great as is (i.e. no big fifth draft – which I would do if I thought it’d make the book better, but I’m certainly happy to skip after four drafts and the line edit to end all line edits).

So we haggled out the paperwork. I’m represented. Now off down the rabbit hole to see what the publishers have to say. Will they be willing to offer Untimed the treatment it deserves? Time shall tell. We hope so.

Nice to have a another we in the equation!

Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought–
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! and through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”
He chortled in his joy.

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

By: agavin
Comments (6)

Posted in: Untimed

Tagged as: Andy Gavin, Brandon Sanderson, Charlaine Harris, EDDIE SCHNEIDER, Elizabeth Moon, Jabberwocky, Jason Rubin, JOSHUA BILMES, Julian the Apostate, Lewis Carroll, Literary agent, Maldives, Mark Hodder, Spring-Heeled Jack, The Darkening Dream, Untimed

Kindle Select – The Sales

Feb29

On February 7-8 I ran a Kindle Select sale giving away The Darkening Dream free (Kindle version) for 48 hours. Free downloads were fantastic and the book was nailed to number 4 overall in the Kindle store for almost two days (details here).

But what about real sales?

The two hours immediately after the sale ends are really crucial. When my novel when off free, my free ranking had slipped to about #7. For about two hours it was no longer free but was still listed there on the first page of the bestseller list in the free column. During this period, it slid slowly down to #11. Meanwhile, with this high visibility, people were still clicking through in high numbers. Watching the sales figures, I saw approximately 1500 ”buys” during this period. But what I don’t know is how many of them were free and how many paid. Amazon reports both in the same column! Only when the February sales report comes in mid-March will I be sure. However, during the next 24 hours I received about 50 returns which has me suspecting a good number of these were paid — and in some cases unintentional. Amazon does not distinguish between free and paid in a very obvious manner and the one-click button looks virtually identical in both cases.

The day immediately following the sale, downloads slumped, to about thirty. After the rush of “selling” several hundred copies an hour (for free) this was a serious letdown. I panicked, and dropped my price from $4.99 to $2.99. But then, almost exactly 24 hours after going back to being paid, whatever mysterious promotion Amazon does in the wake of a successful free days kicked in.

I sold about 200 copies the next day. And about the same the day after. My paid sales ranking peaked at 398. Then two days of about 70 copies a day, then sales have slowly drifted downward. Still, even three weeks later, they’re better than they were before the free day. In addition, the promotion resulted in reaching thousands of new readers who wouldn’t otherwise have found the book and also generated numerous reviews and small articles. Overall, a definite success, but despite having ranked extremely high during the free period, did not in of itself create a longterm sustaining sales momentum.

Some advice for those planning free days:

1. Plan on either one or two days but do not commit to both. You may need to gauge the momentum of your sale so that you can exit with the highest possible ranking.

2. Promote the hell out of your first day. Notify all possible sites that announce free books, particularly pixel of ink. This one seems most effective on downloads. Buy some of these ads if you can.

3. Before running your day, be sure you have the best description and cover possible as well as a decent complement of reviews.

4. Offer sacrifice to Promotius, Roman God of sales and marketing.

Since putting the book on the market two months ago I’ve tried a great number of promotional tactics and this has probably been the most successful, still, I’m searching for a truly great way to get the book in front of more readers. If you have a good product — and reviews seem to back up my assumption that I do — book marketing is all about exposure. There are a tremendous number of books out there, far far more than even the most aggressive reader could actually read, so people are unlikely to just stumble upon your book by accident. Bestsellers aren’t just fun reads — and they generally are — but also benefit massively from the social nature of reading. We don’t want to be left out of the latest cultural phenomenon. They reach that position by luck, marketing, or phenomenon. Or sometimes all three.

By: agavin
Comments (12)

Posted in: Darkening Dream

Tagged as: Amazon Kindle, Amazon.com, Andy Gavin, Darkening Dream, E-book, Kindle, Kindle Select, Ranking, sales, The Darkening Dream

Brace yourself for Hardcover

Feb12

Glamour photo

My publisher might be small (one book released and another in the queue) but I was determined to produce a hardcover edition for my debut novel. Why?

1. As a consummate book lover, I’ve always preferred hardcovers. Sure they’re a pain to lug on vacation but they have real weight to them. And the paper doesn’t yellow or the binding fall apart after ten years.

2. Serious books always come out in hardcover. A straight to paperback book is like a straight to DVD movie.

3. Given that most independent books don’t come in hardcover, and it’s my goal with The Darkening Dream to hold production values to the standards of New York’s finest, I thought a hardcover would help make the book look like the classy publication it is.

4. Since the setup costs for a POD (Print On Demand) book are low, it seemed — erroneously as it turned out — that it wouldn’t be much extra work to create a hardcover edition. And even if I didn’t sell many, I wouldn’t be out much money.

5. They smell nice.

Enough with the reasons. How did I do it?

Finding a POD printer was a given. No way was I going to pay to print and warehouse an offset run. And as far as I know, LightningSource is the only mainstream POD printer that will do a proper black and white, novel-sized hardcover. Others do photobook hardcovers, but those have color interiors, and are way too costly. LSI is owned by Ingram, distributes through them and Amazon, and offers seven sizes of casebound (integrated color cover) and three sizes of color dustjacket hardcovers. All of them are priced well. A friend of mine had used them, so I ordered her book. The quality is good, very similar to most offset hardcovers. The cut of the pages is smooth and aligned, which I actually prefer, but you don’t have the option for that ragged sewn look that was popular in the 80s and 90s. The paper is heavy and comes in white or creme (which is what I used). The printing itself is about 5-10% worse than the best offset hardcover printing. It’s nice, but I can tell it’s not the world’s nicest. Still, it’s much better than a BookClub hardcover and more than acceptable. It’s certainly no worse than most of the hardcovers in my extensive (10,000 book!) collection (photo at the end of the article).

Inside. I used a professional book designer and had custom chapter headings commisioned

My book designer recommended that we choose the same paper size for both the trade paperback and the hardcover, that way they could share the print ready file. To that purpose, I went with 6″x9″ for both. The hardcover is actually slightly bigger anyway because the binding is thicker and overhangs the paper, so both feel about right. The hardcover is much denser and heavier.

But first I had to get an account with LSI. This proved to be one of the more subtasks. First you sign up on their site and fill out like a million pages of forms. Then days later they send you questions. Then you answer them. Then you fill out more forms online. You need to provide credit terms or a credit card to fall back on. The don’t take Amex — Grrr Arg! You need proper tax information (like an EIN). Then they insist that you print out about 75 pages of contracts, sign them, fill out lots of paper forms, and fax them back! This almost defeated me. I detest forms, paper, and fax machines. But I plunged on.

LSI’s interface is also a bit obtuse, nowhere near as easy as CreateSpace. But it was manageable. You need your own ISBNs too, which wasn’t a problem as I’d bought a block of 100 from Bowker. The hardcover, paper, and e-book editions all need separate ISBN’s, but the various e-book versions all share the same one. An additional tip with this is to make sure that all of your ISBN’s are listed on your copyright page with the edition names (i.e. hardcover XXXX paperback XXXX). That way the same interior PDF will work for all.

The hardcover mechanical in all its glory

Now the only thing that is really different is the mechanical. For those of you who don’t know, a mechanical is the big carefully assembled CMYK PDF used to print your cover. The above hardcover mechanical has the front, spine, back, and both flaps, plus the ISBN bar code and the proper crop marks. There are websites/programs to generate you barcodes (pro mac one or a free web one).

LightningSource has a nice (but buried) tool that generates PDF or InDesign templates. You pick the size of your book, the type of paper, and the number of pages (which affects the spine) and it will generate these files and email them to you. Then fire up Photoshop or InDesign and carefully layout the elements on top of the template. The second mechanical (say after the paperback, which is similar) doesn’t take too long for someone skilled with these programs. I’m excellent in PS and decent at ID, but I still hired an experienced jacket designer to do the layout. I didn’t want any element of my book looking amateur. Having at least some basic skills with both these programs saves you a lot of money and time.

But you do have to decide what goes where and develop all the copy for the hardcover layout. The synopsis on the left flap is typically longer than the one on the back of a paperback, plus you’ll need the author photo and bio for the right.

You also have to be careful to use LSI’s template. They will not accept the mechanical if it’s not on their EXACT template file, even if the dimensions are otherwise correct. My jacket designer used his own template for the first pass (although he matched the sizes perfectly) and I had to swap it out underneath the layout in ID to get LSI to take the file. Also be very careful not to project any important elements like text outside the safety zones. LSI spends some care examining your mechanical and will bounce it if it isn’t perfect.

Plus, unlike CreateSpace, they charge some money for the setup. About $125 + an optional $35 for a printed proof. You’ll want to pay it too because the digital proof doesn’t tell you anything about how your alignment actually looks on the book.

Everything at LSI runs a bit slower than at more automated companies like Lulu or CreateSpace. A day or two instead of hours. But they do pay more attention. I received multiple emails about exactly what issues my first mechanical had, including zoomed jpegs of the problem areas. The LSI agent responded rapidly and helpfully to what was probably a fifteen email exchange. This even included some complicated discussion about the CMYK “ink density,” a subject about which I knew nothing. Now I know just a tad more. Apparently, black areas can have too much ink coverage for certain printing processes. Who knew? But we got it sorted. I built a new mechanical and a day later it passed. About two days after that they overnighted me the paper proof.

It looked pretty much perfect. The only problem is in the alignment of the text on the spine, which on this particular proof is about 1/16″ off center. It’s not in my file, but they folded the dustjacket slightly off center. POD has a bit of variation from book to book and supposedly some of them will be perfect and some will be a little off. It’s not really noticeable unless you are looking for it and a large percent of “regular” books on my shelf have off-center spines.

Also, in keeping with the slower pace, it takes LSI some mysterious time between one and eight weeks to propagate their information to Amazon. Eventually, it’s supposed to just show up there, and a few days after that, merge itself with the Kindle and paperback editions. Likewise changing your description and price via LSI takes forever. And this brings up the whole pricing issue.

LSI allows you to set the “discount” on the book. CreateSpace has a hardwired 40% discount but on LSI you can move it to 20% which forces Amazon to take a lower percentage. I chose $24.99 as my list and set the discount to 20%. We’ll have to see how this works out and what Amazon does with it.

Like most of publishing, building the hardcover is made up of a variety of subtasks that while individually not too significant, end up taking considerable time. Still, holding the gorgeous fellow, it’s worth it.

NOTE: This post was original written as a guest post for NovelPublicity and can be found here.

The flaps and the blue fabric cover. You can pick blue or gray.

In case you’re curious about the book behind the pretty cover:

The Darkening Dream

An ominous vision and the discovery of a gruesome corpse lead Sarah Engelmann into a terrifying encounter with the supernatural in 1913 Salem, Massachusetts. With help from Alex, an attractive Greek immigrant, Sarah sets out to track the evil to its source, never guessing that she will take on a conspiracy involving not only a 900-year vampire, but also a demon-loving Puritan warlock, disgruntled Egyptian gods, and an immortal sorcerer, all on a quest to recover the holy trumpet of the Archangel Gabriel.

Relying on the wisdom of an elderly vampire hunter, Sarah’s rabbi father, and her own disturbing visions, Sarah must fight a millennia-old battle between unspeakable forces, where the ultimate prize might be herself.

Find it here on Amazon!

Just one of the 9 shelves in the Fantasy/Sci-fi section of my library

By: agavin
Comments (3)

Posted in: Darkening Dream

Tagged as: Amazon Kindle, Amazon.com, Andy Gavin, Book, Darkening Dream, E-book, Hardcover, New York, Print on demand, The Darkening Dream

Kindle Select – The Results

Feb10

On February 7 and 8 I put The Darkening Dream on 48 hours of Kindle Select free promo. The book tore through the charts to “sell” (I mean give away) over 21,000 copies. In the first 24 hours it propelled itself to #7 free book in the entire Kindle store and for February 8 spent most of the day camped at #4.I was duking it out with that shirtless romance for two days!

But that’s not my favorite shot, that’s below. Side by side with A Game of Thrones!

But what was actually more gratifying than people picking it in mass was the comments (mostly on twitter) from those that read it — uniformly awesome!

But even if you missed the sale, the Kindle version is still just $2.99, so pick it up!

By: agavin
Comments (9)

Posted in: Darkening Dream

Tagged as: Amazon Kindle, Amazon.com, Andy Gavin, Darkening Dream, E-book, Kindle Select, The Darkening Dream

The Darkening Dream – Free on Kindle

Feb07

The title pretty much says it all. The Darkening Dream, my dark fantasy novel, is free on Amazon for the Kindle for just 48 hours — all of February 7 and 8, 2012.

Download it here!

This is a special two day only promotion via Kindle KDP Select. Make sure to grab it while you can, tell your friends about it, and promote everywhere. At the end of Wednesday at midnight it will go back to its normal price. If it does well during the promotion Amazon will bump it up in their internal ranking and it should get a lot of regular sales afterward. That’s the theory at least.

A few words about the book:

NOTE: Free downloads do not count toward tickets for the Naughty Dark Contest.