Showing posts with label Red Betsy Press. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Red Betsy Press. Show all posts

Thursday, April 23, 2015

Cover for The Cheongsam Bombshell: Coming Soon!
Cover art by Mark Anthony Taduran
Cover art, like visualizing your new mobile app or software service idea, isn't always so simple. As I often say, "I can't visualize for sh*t," and I suspect most others can't as well. It's the classic problem of having 30 art students draw the same tree, you'll get 30 different trees.

When it came time for Al McDermid (co-author of A Halo for Red Betsy) and I to determine the cover for our new Frank Keegan pulp noir mystery, The Cheongsam Bombshell, it was clear to me that we were not in synch. But let's back up for a moment and describe our process for our first cover, A Halo for Red Betsy.

Back in late 2013/early 2014, as Al and I were finishing our draft of A Halo for Red Betsy, we needed to figure out a cover for the book. As creator owned, self published work, we definitely had a lot more freedom in our choices for what we wanted. We sought out the services of good friend and indie comic book legend Mark Smylie, Founder of Archaia Entertainment.

Our description for Mark was a hollywood spectacular, mountain top, guns blazing, 100 dollar bills flying scene with Frank Keagan and Maggie Mason running. What we got instead was the following "Mark Smylie" cover. We'll actually, the initial image had "Betsy" completely naked. We requested the Navy whites as a compromise.
A Halo for Red Betsy
Cover Art by Mark Smylie
Needless to say, the final result wasn't anywhere close to what we requested. Upon further contemplation, it's a much better cover than what we expected, despite any initial apprehensions, since the cover actually features the "Betsy" in the title A Halo for Red Betsy. Our original cover concept idea wouldn't have explained the title.

When it came time to conceive the cover for The Cheongsam Bombshell, Al's initial description to me and what I wrote down for the description often varied. To the point, that it was clear to me that we were both visualizing in our mind's eye two different things. For our process, Al lead the way in working with the artist, and the results speak for themselves. Fortunately for us, our new artist Mark Anthony Taduran patiently made corrections based on Al's descriptions.

WHY IS VISUALIZATION IMPORTANT?
The underlying belief we have is that the truism isn't "don't judge a book by its cover," but rather reader's buy based on the visuals of the cover. In a physical store, the worst case situation is that a book is judged by it's spine, based on how many books are displayed in a physical store.

Let's see if the new Frank Keegan mysteries cover, The Cheongsam Bombshell, is enough to get you to buy it. Available Spring 2015.


I often say, "I can't visualize for sh*t": Getting on the Same Page with Your Partners, Part 1.
Thursday, April 23, 2015

I often say, "I can't visualize for sh*t": Getting on the Same Page with Your Partners, Part 1.

Saturday, March 7, 2015

Writer Aki Liao at work on The Cheongsam Bombshell
Coming March 2015
Two common questions that I get are: 1. How do you write with a co-author? 2. Do I need a co-founder? I thought I'd take a moment and address both of these questions in a single blog. At first glance, the two questions would seemingly have no relation, but on closer inspection there are a lot of commonalities.

SOME BACKGROUND: Or an indicator of where I stand on the subject of partnering.

Frank Keegan Myteries
I have had the good fortune of working with my co-author, Al McDermid, on our pulp noir mystery series, Frank Keegan mysteries, of which our next book in the series is The Cheongsam Bombshell. Our partnership began some time ago in which both of us got together and began conceiving the "Red Betsy" world of Frank Keegan set in 1949/1950s Hawaii, which is as much of a character of the book as the people. It is a darker, grittier and hard-boiled historical version than the popular images of today's Hawaii. 

Frank Keegan pulp noir mystery series co-author Al McDermid
Archaia Studios Press (ASP)
In addition to having had a terrific co-authorship, I've also had the good fortune of partnering with the Founder of Archaia Studios Press (aka Archaia Entertainment), Mark Smylie. We co-founded one of the top indie comic book publishing presses in the US. in 2005. Home of such hits as MouseGuard, Robotika and The Killer, which was optioned by Brad Pitt's Plan B for director David Fincher. Archaia was literally a business that two guys built in a garage (Mark's garage that is).
Archaia Studios Press Founder, Mark Smylie

Acting co-Founder
I've also had the good fortune of working with several top Taiwan startup teams, where I often serve as the acting co-Founder of a given startup, especially when the Founder hasn't yet identified and enrolled a co-Founder. This is never more apparent than in the case of edtech startup Jibao. Founder Kimble Wang is always kind and refers to me as his mentor.

So one can tell, I believe in co-founders and co-authorships. Basically, as a consultant, I look for the signs that the Founder has "followers". When I say followers, I mean as defined by Derek Sivers in his famous Ted Talk on "How to Start a Movement?" My interpretation of Mr. Sivers' talk is that sometimes we overlook the importance of the first follower as another type of leadership; for without the first follower, the leader is but the "lone nut." It is the first follower that shows the others how to follow the leader. Thus, I actively encourage all of the startup folks I get involved with to have a co-founder. AND when we say, co-founder, we don't necessarily mean the technical co-founder or vice versa. I'm talking about having people that you can collaborate, share ideas and journey forth with.

In the startup space, founders need to be able to discuss things that they normally can't share with their investors, potential investors, staffers and other teammates. Probably things they couldn't share with their spouses and extended friends. Many of these things are about their fears, challenges, and obstacles, that if shared with outsiders could affect the mood of staffers or decrease the trust that an investor has in them. Who wants to know the Founders have no idea what they're doing?! 

The Fellowship of the Ring?
Often in the sharing of the task at hand comes the support needed to achieve a venture's goals - like The Fellowship of the Ring from the Lord of the Rings, where Frodo, our "founder" goes on a journey with his first follower "Sam" and the rest of the Fellowship (other hobbits, humans, elves and dwarves) as they strive to throw the one ring of power back into Mordor and banish Sauron forever.

Draft cover of the upcoming The Cheongsam Bombshell
(March 2015)

CO-AUTHORING A MYSTERY

Back to co-authoring a mystery, how do we do it? First of all Al and I both write, we both plot, we both come up with characters and motivations. In general, of the two, Al is the stronger technical writer, in that Al is an editor by profession and has advised other writers. With Al as the "safety net," this allows me the ability to "swing for the fences" in that I can go for it, take bigger risks in plot, ideas and passages that I write, knowing that Al is there as my "belayer" to keep me from falling into the "corny and cliche" abyss. From this method of working, we tend to generate good ideas, and if we may say so, some great ideas!

As a writing duo, we have an implicit trust in each other and believe that the goal of the whole is more important than any specific wording, passage, character or idea. As a result, there are many, many pages of our stories that are left on the proverbial "cutting room floor" or would make a terrific deleted scenes sequence in story writing's equivalent of DVD extras, whatever that may be.

For the partnership to work, we both need to be able to "go there" in the creative process. Some may call it a heated debate. I've often apologized to my co-author for the plain old yelling I do during our process. We acknowledge our commitment to the common goal.

To this end, you need to have a shared goal - a North Star. You also need to have common like/dislikes - not totally the same, as you need the variation to come up with stronger characters, better plots, etc. For instance, Al's favorite writer is John Sandford, while I'm partial to Erle Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason mysteries, which Al can't stand to read. But we both read Mickey Spillane's classic, I, the Jury; and both love Ross MacDonald.

So go out and find yourself a co-founder. At a minimum, it's like in Lord of the Rings where it's Samwise Gamgee who ultimately carries both the ring and Frodo to the finale of LotR (Oops should I have said spoiler alert?). There are going to be moments when on the journey that is startup or mystery writing, where you'll need that external support to keep you on the path. For sure, Al's kept me on the path, and I daresay, there are moment's where I've been there for him as well.




Co-Founders and Co-Authors - Figuring It All Out
Saturday, March 07, 2015

Co-Founders and Co-Authors - Figuring It All Out

Saturday, February 7, 2015

Since my writing partner and I are independent self published authors, somewhat similar to doing a startup where you depend on audience feedback to test your product, we depend on beta readers to offer us feedback. Thus, at the end of our writing process, we submit our manuscript to beta readers. It's our test to see if what we've produced will be viable. Like having a minimum viable product ("MVP") in startup terms. In novel writing terms, it's basically, did anyone like it? Did they get it?

Thank you Beta Reader "T" for all of the typo catches and even plot issues!
Colorful stickies are indications of errors in the manuscript.
Types of things that our beta readers catch and how we'll deal with them.

1. Typos - of course, we change these. It's like in startup software where internal business users catch typos, graphic errors and other simple mistakes. We always appreciate these catches, as even though we make an effort to edit the manuscript (and my co-author is a professional editor!), it's often difficult to catch errors when you've been too close to the subject for too long.

2. Consistency Errors - of course, we change these. These often occur because in our process, we change around scenes, modify the plot and switch out characters and/or their dialogue so often, as is our process, that we often miss things and end up with inconsistencies. Some of which, we don't catch. Examples: Did the hero put the gun away or does he still have it? Did she dye her hair or is she wearing a wig?

3. Endings. In A Halo for Red Betsy, some of our beta readers wanted our villain to get his comeuppance, so after some debate, we decided to provide an extra scene involving the heroes, the villain and a football pass. (You'll have to read Red Betsy to know what happens!)

In our new book of the Frank Keegan pulp noir mystery series, The Cheongsam Bombshell, we've been getting a fairly universal reaction to our ending, one that should suggest that we make a change. Instead of following the feedback blindly, we're going stick with our own "gut" on this ending and stay the course.

That said, this is similar to having a North Star in startup ventures and knowing what you believe the audience wants, not what they say they want. In the case of mystery novel writing, the ending of The Cheongsam Bombshell, must remain as is. (This will be apparent to anyone reading this 2nd Frank Keegan novel and the continuation of the Frank Keegan series).

Ultimately, we won't know if we, as authors, have made the right choice until our general release of the new novel in March 2015. For the time being, we're going to "stick to our guns" and deliver the ending as is. The one consolation we've provided to our beta readers is an epilogue to help readers digest the end a little better.
Absorbing Feedback from Your Beta Readers
Saturday, February 07, 2015

Absorbing Feedback from Your Beta Readers

Thursday, January 8, 2015

You may ask, what does a mystery novel writing have anything to do with a Startup? Perfectly good question, but once you think about it, the two take the same amount of creativity, focus, adaptability and trust for the novel writing or startup to succeed.


INTRODUCTION
For the better part of a couple of years now, my co-author, Al McDermid, and I have been working on our Frank Keegan pulp noir mystery series. As many may know, Al and I met as graduate students and years after graduating, we decided to give novel writing a try. Soon, life got in the way, and we went our separate ways. Many years later, we finally reconnect some 2 years ago and soldiered on. The result is our first Frank Keegan pulp noir mystery published via Amazon Services in March 2014. This first novel is entitled A Halo for Red Betsy

Nearly 10 months later, we're proofing the second mystery novel entitled The Cheongsam Bombshell, with projected publication in March 2015.

CREATIVITY
Doing a startup, requires a lot of creativity. Not only for creating the vision of something new, something disruptive, but even for something that would be a value add to an existing solution. The work as many knows requires story telling, projecting that vision, describing a world without and then with your wonderful new solution. 

Whether you're giving a expresso version of the 30 second pitch or providing a full on demonstration packed with powerpoint slides, you've got to come up with a compelling tale. Nancy Duarte gives a terrific Ted Talks on the secret of giving great talks. The points that Ms. Duarte makes resonant in the task at hand for an author to keep the audience's attention, providing highs and lows and getting his/her audience to care about the characters.

It goes without saying that writing is an extremely creative endeavor (although some would say, there are days when the blank page/screen calls forth no creativity at all!). Like storytelling in startup world, there's a constant flow of characters, events, highs and lows, and finally weaving it into a coherent story. Let's not forget, mystery story telling, where you'd have to figure out whodunit and try to play fair, by providing the reader enough clues to potentially solve it. At the very least, make it so that the ending fits with all of the clues and red herrings you've left behind.

WRITING "RED BETSY"
Al and I both got into this process thinking that we had to have a very clear chronology, especially since it would be two of us writing, we figured we needed to work off of the same set of "design blueprints" so to speak. We even thought to write the ending first, so that we'd know where we were going. Throughout our drafts the murderer changed at least once, and probably more than once. (Thus, I think we were able to surprise most readers, as we had intended for a different murderer!)

Not sure about how everyone else does it, but it seemed that we could only plan to a certain extent. Thus, before coming up with the final ending, we were off and running, each writing sections, and then Al going through the draft editing for grammar, word choice and finally smoothing out the voice.

Like a startup that tells a story with a projected North Star and exit strategy, we set out on our adventure, uncertain as to the final result, but ultimately knowing we were on the journey together. Let the story unfold.

Next time, part 2. Stay tuned!

How is Mystery Novel Writing like doing a Startup? (Part 1)
Thursday, January 08, 2015

How is Mystery Novel Writing like doing a Startup? (Part 1)

Friday, February 14, 2014

In an earlier time, I often worked with Startup teams to find "their passion."  Questions were always around, what did they like in their regular lives?  What were they passionate about?  For a startup founder this was often an intriguing question at best, at worst it was downright perplexing.

When starting a startup, I often caution startup founders that its likely even if their venture does okay, they'll be doing the startup venture for a minimum of 3 to 5 years.  Thus, its important to determine how much they like what they are working on, and by extension their passion for their startup idea.

An example of determination.
Aki Liao and Al McDermid's e-book that was an odyssey of over 15 years.
Cover art by Mark Smylie.  Released via Amazon e-publishing A Halo for Red Betsy.
Lately, I've shifted my focus to more of the question, "Do they have determination?"  In essence, passion is often a good starting point.  Passion can even be as simple quest for solving interesting technical problems.  But to make it in the long run, passion won't sustain them.  Passion may not even sustain them through the ups and downs rollercoaster ride that is the startup life.

Now in additon to determinig if they have passion, its all about figuring out if they show qualities for determination.  How determined are they to see the venture through?  Do they have a track record of seeing things through?  Have they been working on their idea for some time and show an almost obessive commitment to working on the idea?  Do they have something to prove (to others or themselves)?  Will they have worked on the idea regardless of the naysayers?  It seems to be self-evident, but often determination is over looked in understanding the motivations of a startup founder.
For Startups: Is it Passion or Determination that Determines Success?
Friday, February 14, 2014

For Startups: Is it Passion or Determination that Determines Success?