Chris Barili

I’ll be participating in MileHiCon October 27-29, and after I announced that, a fellow writer surprised me by asking what MileHiCon is. This fellow writes fantasy and didn’t know about Colorado’s top Fantasy and Science Fiction literary convention. It made me wonder how many people don’t know what cons, or conventions, are and what they can do for your writing.

In this case, I am attending MileHiCon, a literary convention for the Science Fiction and Fantasy genre. A literary convention centers around books, for both writers and readers. Thus, they tend to be a good place to sell books, network, and learn craft. Most genres have them, including some here in Colorado. The Colorado Horror Convention happens in Denver at the end of October/early November. Colorado Romance Writers hold a mini-con in August. And the Colorado Mystery Convention takes place in early October. There are also writers conferences, which tend to be non-genre-specific, but are great places to network, pitch, and learn from broader, more generalized skillsets. Most people know about Comic Cons, which celebrate comic books. Most cities have them now, and while they aren’t the best place to learn about writing or network, you can sometimes sell a good number of books there, especially if they’re in the speculative fiction genres.

So what does a writer do at a convention? I’ve only been to a few now, but they’ve been spread across the spectrum of cons, so between what I know and some of my more experienced friends know, I think this is a good starting list:

1. Get a table and sell your brand. Sell your books, yes, but sell your brand, the image you want people to have of you as a writer, too. Use book marks, stickers, handouts, cards, and whatever other professional publicity items you come up with. A con-savvy friend of mine handed out 4″ x 6″ cards with a flash story on the back so readers would get to know her style. Brilliant!
2. Network. Not just with readers, but with other writers, editors, agents, and publishers. Again, get your brand out there, and for goodness sake, whatever you do, follow the Golden Rule of being an author: don’t be a jerk. Be polite, even friendly. I know, you’re an introvert and hate people. Get over it. This is business.
3. Get on Panels! Even if you’re not yet published, you’re still a writer, and your viewpoint is unique. Try to get on panels you feel strongly about, but that you can discuss logically and professionally. Ones that you have some experience with. At MileHiCon this year, I’m on panels about transforming characters (several of my Hell’s Butcher Series characters transform), and another on what happens to a story when you add a romantic subplot. Panels get you exposure to a combination of industry professionals and readers, so they do double-duty for you.
4. SOCIALIZE. Every con has what they call Bar-Cons, usually on Friday and Saturday nights. This is the time a lot of schmoozing gets done, and when many people who aren’t formally attending the con show up to meet up with cohorts and friends. Stay sober, and mingle. Circulate, talking to as many people as possible. Or even better, have a more experienced friend show you around and introduce you to people.
5. Be ready, and swing if the pitch is right. Basically, have your elevator and long pitches ready, so if some editor or agent wants to hear about your stuff, you’re ready on a moment’s notice to make them want your work. And if that chance comes up — DO IT. You won’t regret it, even if it flops.

Conventions can be a great way to sell your work, promote yourself, and meet people in the business of writing (and selling) stories. They can be intimidating at first, but once you get out there, they’re a lot of fun, and can help you grow as a writer.

The passing of Carrie Fisher this week plucked a somber chord on my heartstrings, a good bit sadder than most of the other icons we’ve lost this year. I saw the original Star Wars seven times the year it came out, and it didn’t take long to figure out that Princess Leia was a major reason why.

Sure, every adolescent boy had a crush on the strong-willed rebel royal. Why wouldn’t we? She was beautiful, fiery, and compassionate. But she was also strong. Incredibly strong. A princess who, if left alone, would eventually have rescued herself. So sure, I had that same boyhood crush on the character Fisher brought to life so well. But I had just dipped my toe into the waters of writing fiction at that age, and Carrie Fisher’s amazing portrayal set a tone in my heart that would affect my writing–and my life–for years to come.

You see, Princess Leia was one of the first widely accepted “strong female characters” out there. She shot a blaster with the best of them, exerted her royal will like a champion arm wrestler exerts their strength. And Fisher–whose personality was much like the character she portrayed–brought that to life like no one else at the time could have. She showed the world that women could not only be as badass as men, but could be more so. And could do it with a grace and beauty that most men could not begin to achieve. And Fisher handled everything in her life that way, from addiction to mental health issues. She faced them all, blaster in hand, and fought her way through.

So Carrie Fisher’s performance sparked in my mind a strong affection for women of strength. From that moment forward, I admired women who could put anyone–myself included–in their place. Women who didn’t need a man to rescue them, and could tussle with the best the male gender had to offer.

This bled over into my life as a military professional. Women were just starting to be more integrated in the military in the 80s, and some guys had trouble working with them, much less for them. Not me. Most of the bosses I remember fondly are women. Anytime they showed a little spark of that Leia strength, anytime one of them showed charisma, grit, or power, it wasn’t foreign to me. It was a trait I’d already learned to admire. In fact, when it came time for me to retire from the military, I chose a female colonel for whom I had a ton of respect to officiate my ceremony.

But Leia’s strong personality fused with my writing, too. When I was fourteen, I started writing my first fantasy novel. (No, you may not see it. Ever. Never ever ever ever. No.) A portal fantasy, it took a male protagonist from our world and dropped him in a medieval fantasy world where he was alone and clueless. The first person he met in that world was a redheaded woman on the run from the king’s justice, a woman who not only defeats four men in armed combat during her opening appearance, but through sheer strength of will, makes the protagonist face and defeat his own inner demons.

And most of my stories since–no matter their genre–have featured strong female characters. Women who don’t really need Luke or Prince Charming or anyone else to rescue them. I don’t think I’ve ever written about a woman held hostage in a tower, or waiting for a man to come rescue her. Why? Well, because that’s not what Leia would do.

So losing Carrie Fisher–and now, as I write this learning her mother Debbie Reynolds has also passed–draws more than a few tears from me. We toss around the word “icon” pretty freely these days, but Carrie truly was an icon. And she left an indelible mark on my writing and my life. She will be missed.

Hey, everyone! The hardest and most time-consuming part of self-publishing a book is, without a doubt, marketing and publicity. Most of us who write stories aren’t natural sales people, so we struggle when it comes to pushing our stories, no matter how strongly we believe in them. And every minute we spend working on that is a minute not spent writing, so we tend to shy away from the marketing side of self-publishing.

As I said earlier, Hell’s Marshal went on sale (Kindle version) on the 14th for $1.49, and dropped again to 99-cents a few days later as part of a marketing push to get sales rolling. Since going on sale, it’s gone back and forth in Amazon’s western horror sub-genre, ranking between number 7 (where is as I write this) and number 13. I’d love to get it into the top 5 and keep it there for a while, so I’m asking you for help. It’s really easy to do:

1. The easiest way to help–buy a copy. For under a buck, it’s painless, and has the most direct influence on ranking.
2. If you liked it, leave a review. Doesn’t have to be more than a few words, really, and a star rating. After purchases, reviews are next in the Amazon algorithm hierarchy of important data.
3. And finally, recommend the book. You can do this by word of mouth, or be sharing a post like this, so more people buy the book. (And ask them to review it too.)

It’s that simple.

And for those wondering, Hell’s Butcher (Book Two) is undergoing my revisions right now. It’ll go through beta readers around Thanksgiving, then through my editor (the amazing Jen Severino from Twitching Pen Editing) in early December. That’s about the time Michelle Johnson from Blue Sky Designs will start on the cover art, too. I expect this book out in early spring. In this volume–which is a bit longer than book one–Frank and his posse end up on the sophisticated east coast, tracking an infamous assassin and his gang as they try to stir up trouble in the nation’s capitol.

As a special installment, I hope to have Guilty, the pre-quel to Frank’s adventures as Hell’s Marshal, out in late spring, so everyone can know how he came to be the marhal he is!

Thank you!

Here’s a link to the Kindle Version of Hell’s Marshal: Buy on Amazon

I’ve been a Buffalo Bills fan since 1986. I’ve taken the Bills with me all around the world, using them as my connection back to my roots. Sundays have always been set aside for watching them, even when I was overseas and had to get up at midnight or 2 a.m. to watch whatever game the Armed Force Network had on, just to see updates on Buffalo. And I’ve always written stories, since the ripe age of 14, even during my twenty years of military service. Stories were my escape, my happy place.

Fifteen years ago today, just before the second week of the 2001 NFL season, I was on active duty with the US Air Force, stationed at Schriever AFB, outside Colorado Springs, CO. I was the NCO in charge of the Intelligence Division there, and we’d just finished our morning intel briefing to the commander and his staff when CNN came on, showing one of the world trade center towers burning. They said it was an accident, that a “small plane” had crashed into the building, but that seemed wrong, somehow. A few minutes later, I watched live as a plane struck the other tower, and I knew in a heartbeat we were under attack.

My first call went to our security personnel, to warn them of the situation. The second was to my wife, to have her get all our kids out of school and home immediately. The rest of that day is a blur. I remember snippets. Comforting a frightened security forces troop outside out building. Watching the first tower fall. Seeing a seasoned federal agent in tears. I finally got home to my family the next morning, after twenty-four hours on shift. I held them all, reveling in what I had, grateful they were all OK when so many other parents had lost so much.

At the time, I feared how the attacks would fundamentally change our nation, how they’d make us less of what we were. I thought for sure that the attackers had caused a wound that would never heal. The next weekend, I didn’t get to watch my team, the Buffalo Bills, something I did every Sunday, with few exceptions. And I didn’t care. Football seemed unimportant, like it might never be important to me again. I didn’t have time to write that week, either. Or the one after. Writing seemed unimportant at the time, a luxury I could no longer afford.

Now, fifteen years later, I look back and realize just how badly the attackers failed.

I got back to writing that month, though a lot of my effort went into journaling about my emotions at the time. Writing is a natural catharsis, a drug that dulls the pains we carry with us through a kind of emotional blood-letting. And sure enough, the more I did it, the less I hurt, and the more I got back to writing fiction instead of journals.

And I got back to watching football, too. The attackers hit me close to home, as a native New Yorker, and the Bills were still my connection to that heritage. In fact, a month after the attacks I watched the Bills again, and I haven’t stopped since.

Now, fifteen years after those attacks, I’m retired from active duty, but I’m still sitting down on my couch to watch the Bills. I’ll grill wings, drink beer, and yell at the TV like I did all those years before the attacks, and all the years since. This will be a tougher-than-normal year, with games happening right ON 9-11, but I’ll watch and I’ll cheer. And probably I’ll cry. The memorials will be going on, and I’m sure they’ll show them throughout the game. And they’ll make me remember.

But they’ll also remind me that we continue on. We’ve changed, and we’ve suffered, and we’ve lost a lot. But we’re still watching football on Sunday. Writers still write, and readers still read. Players still play, and fans still cheer. And cry. But mostly cheer. Because they failed—we’re still here.

With the paranormal romance Smothered just two days from release, B.T. Clearwater (my romance-writing alter ego) thought it might be a good time for an excerpt. Check it out on the B.T. Clearwater blog:

http://btclearwater.blogspot.com/2016/09/well-with-release-of-smothered-just-two.html

Since I’m expecting edits back on my paranormal romance novel Smothered anytime now (as B.T. Clearwater, through Winlock Press), I thought it might be a good time to talk romance a bit. I know the romance genre gets a good bit of snickering and skeptical looks, especially when you toss “paranormal” or “supernatural” into the mix. That’s why some readers used to hide their romance novels with covers from other books, and part of the reason e-readers are so incredibly popular with the romance reader crowd. It allows discretion in the face of widespread derision.

Much of that derision comes from a lack of understanding of the genre itself, and part from the perception that the average romance reader has no romance in their own life and has to substitute fictional romance and love for the real things. Finally, at least among the author crowd, there’s some down-the-nose looks at the genre because it’s viewed as formulaic and of little literary value.

So first off, the genre is one of the most complex out there, with sub-genres like paranormal, historical, thriller-romance, fantasy-romance, medical romance, crime romance, and more. And that doesn’t even get into the types of relationships covered: straight, male on male, female on female, and so on. While there is certainly some use of formula, that’s true of any genre. Did anyone question why Star Wars (IV or VII) was pretty much  the hero’s journey from start to finish? Or why the story lines in The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner, and Divergent were so similar? Nope, but heaven forbid romance writers follow a successful formula.

As far as the reader using romance to substitute for something lacking in their own lives, how’s that any different from any other genre? We read to escape our hum-drum lives. Does anyone think a fantasy reader runs around slaying trolls, or that a crime reader solves murders every day? Every work of fiction ever written filled a void for its readers, so why is romance any less valid for filling one?

Finally, let’s not forget that some of the all-time literary greats are romances. Pride and Prejudice, Romeo and Juliet, Wuthering Heights, Madame Bovary. Even The Princess Bride (OK, I threw that on there as  one of MY all-time favorites). So to say they have no literary value, or to diminish their value based on genre alone, does the genre and its readers a great disservice. In fact, almost every full-length story ever written has some sort of romantic sub-plot in it. Why? Simple–it’s universal in its appeal and its empathy. Everyone understands love and the desire to be loved, so that kind of subplot–or main plot in the case of romance stories–brings people to the story who otherwise might not read it. Or it at least gives readers a story that they’re almost guaranteed to care about, no matter what they think of the rest of the book.

Romance corners something like 65% of the profits in the fiction world, so by sheer monetary value, numbers of readers, and volume of sales, it is a significant genre, like it or not. You can’t just write off numbers like that.

So here’s an exercise for you that should demonstrate the value of romance in storytelling. Make a list of ten novels that contain NO romantic sub-plots or relationships at all. If you can list ten, you’re probably doing better than most people.

If nothing else, it’ll be a difficult thing to do. By the end of it, I’ll bet you appreciate romance a bit more.

I know I’ve been silent for awhile, and a large part of that is because we’re selling our home. Anyone who has done that knows how much of a giant pain in the butt it is, and how it completely consumes your life. (However, it has inspired a blog post I have planned for the future, so I guess it’s worth it.)

While I have been quiet, I’ve not been inactive. In fact, I’m happy to announce that my novel Smothered is one of two books selected to pioneer the new supernatural romance line for Winlock Press! Winlock made the announcement on their Facebook page.

Smothered will appear under my romance pen name B.T. Clearwater, and will come out in e-book form this September, assuming all goes well. A limited print run will follow shortly afterward, and I hope to do some local area signings this fall.

What does this mean for my other work? Well, book 2 in the Hell’s Butcher series will likely slip a month or two in its release date. That’s more due to the home sale than the Winlock agreement, since I’ve been unable to apply as much time to writing as I wanted while painting and fixing and cleaning and stressing. But I’m still shooting for an end-of-year release, so it should be out just in time for holiday shopping. Books make GREAT stocking stuffers, after all. And instead of diving into a fantasy novel I’ve been mulling over, I’ll be plotting out a second paranormal romance (which has been kicking around inside my cranium for a year or so now) to keep some momentum going.

If you have a chance, go to the B.T. Clearwater Facebook page and give it a LIKE, and follow on Twitter (@ClearwaterBt). I’ll be working on a website too, but that’s a project for post-move time, when I’m all settled in my new place and not constantly on alert for showings.

So it’s been an exciting few weeks! My first book deal, and it means I get to blaze trails for Winlock’s new supernatural romance line. I hope you’ll all give it a read when it comes out–I’ll be posting excerpts and so on once I have the B.T. Clearwater site up and running!

It’s hard enough to make it as an Indie author, but when Amazon stacks the deck against you by censoring where your book can be advertised, your task as publicist becomes nearly impossible.

Most of you have seen the fantastic cover done for Hell’s Marshal by cover artist Michelle Johnson of Blue Sky Design. I love the cover, as it perfectly portrays the mood, genre, and subject of the book, and is truly original in a day of stock photo covers and generic artwork. I see it as a great attention-grabber.

So, knowing I needed some publicity, and believing this cover could get it, I started an Amazon ad campaign for Hell’s Marshal the day it came out. I budgeted a whopping $150 spread out over a month at a price of fifty cents per click (you only pay if someone clicks on an ad). These ads appear on Amazon’s shopping web pages, and on Kindle eReaders at the home page and along the bottom of the window while readers shop.

Just to be sure it would work, I checked Amazon’s “Creative Acceptance Policy” and felt the cover wasn’t even close to breaking their rules, so I submitted. The campaign went in for review. A day later, Amazon sent me the following message. Look at that middle paragraph, starting with “Unfortunately”:

I wondered if I had, perhaps, misread their standards, so I checked. The section pertaining to keeping ads off Kindle eReaders is section 3 (Restricted Ad Content and Books.) Here’s what it said:

Neither did I see anything in paragraph 2.2 (Unacceptable Ad Content) that ran contrary to my cover:

2.2 Unacceptable ad content

So I sent the marketing folks the following email:

My ad campaign was rejected for running on Kindle e-readers because the cover art, “displays realistic or stylized human skulls and bones.” I looked at your creative acceptance policy under Restricted Ad Content and Books (where it mentions being restricted in such a manner), and don’t see where skulls with glowing red eyes would be restricted. Could someone please clarify for me?

I got an automatic email saying they’d get back to me by the 20th of April. On the 19th (they’re nothing if not prompt), I got this:

Yes, they ACTUALLY admitted that their rules don’t currently ban my cover, and stated openly they’re changing the rules after-the-fact to make my ad unsuitable for eReader placement. Stunned by such a blatant admission, I fired off this email:

OK, wait. So you’re inventing a new rule specifically to ban my cover from e-reader ads? That is misrepresentation of what I signed up for. There was NOTHING in the rules about this–as your email above CLEARLY states–so the ad campaign I signed up for should be allowing this. You don’t get to change the rules after the fact. Please put me in touch directly with a manager on this matter.

Amazon’s reply was quick and final:

They actually repeat that they’re changing the rules for this, then try to dress it up as continuous updates–yeah, when you see something you don’t like, you change the rules. Same thing. Either way, though, let’s break down this rule:

“This includes excessive blood,” — None.

“injuries,” — Nope.

“mutilations, guts,” — Nope, and nope.

“weapons being used in a violent or threatening manner” — Most definitely not.

That leaves, “corpses.” Here’s the definition of corpse from Webster’s Online Dictionary: “a dead body, usually of a human being.” It’s a stretch to call a skull a corpse, since there is no body, but even if we accept that definition, the ad staffer and manager both said the cover used “realistic skulls and bones,” which is obviously not the case. It’s METALLIC and has glowing, red eyes. Clearly it’s a fantasy object, and even more importantly, it’s only a DEPICTION, as it’s part of a badge our main character wears.

So it’s NOT a corpse, and NOT realistic. Seriously–it’s not going to scare anyone, but just to see if I was the only one being picked on, I turned on my own Kindle App on my tablet, and look what came up in the ads at the bottom of my screen:

Oh look, a skull with glowing, red eyes, and this one’s a LOT scarier than a badge with a metallic skull. And in the same row of ads, there was a man being punched in the face (injuries), a gun being pointed at the reader (weapons being used in a threatening manner), and covers violating other rules on that Creative Acceptance page (para 2.2), including animal cruelty and sexually provocative poses.

So this begs the question, “what makes my ad so much worse than all of these?”

The bottom line is that it’s not. It was just randomly reviewed by someone who subjectively found it to be “too scary” (their words exactly) for general audiences, while these other covers were looked at by someone else with a stronger stomach, different values, or simply a different take on Amazon’s rules. In fact, I’d bet that no one after the first reviewer even looked at my cover, since they said it had “skulls and bones,” when in fact  it had only a skull. In all likelihood, they just blindly supported their reviewer’s initial call.

And therein lies the problem with any kind of censorship, be it of the book itself or an ad promoting it–no two people have the same filters through which to see things. Thus, it’s never long before rules are being enforced unevenly and unfairly. And let’s face it, in the world of independent or self-publishing, censoring publicity is tantamount to censoring the book itself. It’s a blade that must be wielded with the greatest of care.

But look, I get Amazon’s intent. We don’t want children being frightened (or otherwise harmed) by an image that pops up on a Kindle they’re using to read Harry Potter or The Hunger Games. And that’s a good thing. But someone somewhere has to use some common sense, and you cannot simply allow creation of rules mid-stream to accommodate one person’s subjective interpretation of those rules. If that demon isn’t too scary, why is the badge on the cover of Hell’s Marshal? I guess I just drew the short straw and got someone with a weak stomach or staunch religious values who took offense at the notion of a law enforcement officer from the abyss. Whatever the reason, I lose out on potential advertising benefits.

Oh, and I won’t be changing the cover. First off, I already paid for this and I’m not going to pay for another just because Amazon can’t enforce its rules fairly and consistently. Second–and more importantly–I believe in that cover and the artist who did it. It’s right for the book, even if it made some weak-in-the-middle reviewer dribble a spot of pee in their underpants. (Seriously, I know five-year-olds who wouldn’t find that cover scary!) And when I believe in something, I stick with it.

So there you go, Indie Authors–understand your vendor. Amazon’s advertising staff makes up the rules as they go, and you have no say whatsoever. Even checking their rules beforehand won’t help–they’re not afraid of changing those rules to suit their rulings. You could invest hundreds in a great cover, just to find out it can’t be advertised because someone else found it too scary, sexy, violent, or otherwise offensive.

And without publicity, good luck selling books. And as a dear friend reminded me recently, isn’t that our goal? Selling books?

Well, we’re five days out from the release of Hell’s Marshal, so I thought this might be a good time to go over something that’s often overlooked in a book of this kind: research.

Hell’s Marshal is set in real places like Creede, Colorado; Liberty, Missouri; Adair, Iowa; and Northfield, Minnesota. Normally, researching those settings could be as simple as a search engine and Google Earth, but since Hell’s Marshal takes place in 1892, things are a little different now, and some information isn’t going to be available through normal internet sources.

One of the hardest things to do was get the setting right. For example, one scene (a gunfight) takes place in Bridge Square, in Northfield, the spot where the James-Younger gang conducted a failed robbery attempt during Jesse James’ life. Specifically, they robbed a bank that was in the back of a building on Division Street. That building–the Scriver Building–still stands today, but it has different signs, different paint, and so on. And of course the streets are much different now than in 1892. So I had to figure out three main things: How were the streets set up in 1892, what did the buildings look like, and what was going on?

The street arrangement part proved most difficult. In previous cities, I’d been able to find old fire insurance maps online that showed me not only the street layout at or close to the time of the story, but what businesses were in each building. For Bridge Square, that kind of map wasn’t available online, so I had to go with a combination of Google Earth, an old map from 1869 with no street names, a reconstructed map showing the layout during the James gang’s robbery, and photos of the square and its buildings.

Here’s the recreated map. While it isn’t very detailed, it allowed me to see the general layout of the square and its bridge, as well as the buildings.

The photo below (from the Daily Mail) shows Bridge Square as you start across the bridge, which allowed me to recognize that my characters wouldn’t be able to see the bank until they were in the square itself, versus from the bridge.

Below are two old photos of the Scriver building (Courtesy Here). Note the differences in roof structures, the stairs on one side, and so on. The bank is visible on the left wall, toward the rear. I needed to choose the more accurate photo for 1892, which turned out to be the second one, since the staircase was added in 1875 to provide access to a dental office.

Finally, I used historical accounts of the James-Younger gang’s original botched robbery attempt to find other points of interest I could use in the story, but when things got really tough, I turned to the experts at the Northfield Historical Society. Hayes Scriven, Executive Director, answered some tough questions and even suggested some other points of interest that were James gang-related, including The Exchange, a hidden saloon the brothers went to in both real life, and my story.

In fact, people from the Creede Historical Society, Clay County Museum and Archives in Missouri, and the Northfield Historical Society were crucial for filling in the historical gaps in this story. These folks are all volunteers, dedicated to preservation of our past, keeping it alive so we can learn from it and not repeat our past mistakes. I found them all willing and enthusiastic about helping, and suspect it’s that way with just about every historical society.

Is Hell’s Marshal 100-percent historically accurate? Nope. I had to fill in some blanks myself, where information just wasn’t available. But It’s close, and what’s really important is that it captures the flavor of these places in 1892, making it easier for the reader to jump back in time while reading.

The following historians proved invaluable in writing the book:

– Bob Seago and Johanna Gray, Creede Historical Society, Creede, CO
– Hayes Scriven, Executive Director, Northfield Historical Society, Northfield, MN
– James Thorn, Clay County Museum, Clay County, MO
– Christopher Harris, Resident Historian, Clay County Archives, Clay County, MO

Hell’s Marshal arrives on Amazon April 14th!