Wrong Place. Write Crime

It's a pleasure being compared to mega pulp master Eric Beetner and in the company of bestselling crime writer, Frank Zaphiro. I wasn't off the plane from Chernobyl and the latter is interviewing me on his awesome podcast Wrong Place. Write Crime. We not only discuss my catalogue, but important noir/crime writerly stuff like, you'd better be enjoying what you're writing or it's gonna damn well show itself on the page. If you don't like your own words, your fans or would-be fans ain't gonna like it either. Make sense? Oh and we're also lucky to be published by the same gritty, take-no-prisoners outfit, Down&Out Books.

Grab the Podcast HERE:

 WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM

Also, please don't forget THE EXTORTIONIST, the latest in the Steve Jobz PI Thriller series, is currently available for pre-order at a special low price that will double after its November 29 release date. So act now thriller fans.  
 

Chasing your tail...

...Or what's better known in the writing world as chasing trends (maybe I should have titled this, Chasing your tale, get it?). Every now and then, a blockbuster book is published, the likes of Harry Potter, or The Hunger Games, or The Da Vinci Code. The latter is the only thriller written by a US author that I've seen sold in both the Vatican bookstore and The Uffizi in Florence. That's how popular it is. I'd be surprised if it hasn't yet been translated into Apache.

The point here, dear reader, is that when a book and/or a series goes absolutely ballistic, we as authors with more (clears the frog from his throat) humble sales, relatively speaking, sometimes get the urge to follow the trend and jump on board. The urge to write my version of the Da Vinci Code came to me in the form of an itch in the middle of my upper back that I couldn't possibly scratch. It didn't go away until I wrote the first novel in the unbelievably wildly popular and successful Chase Baker Thriller series, The Shroud Key (Ha-ha).

So here's the point: Under normal circumstances, I would not suggest writing to market. I would not suggest one chase a trend just because it's presently super popular. I would instead suggest one stick to one's brand because in the long run, the brand is what will make an author an artistic and financial success. There's a reason McDonalds hamburgers taste just like the McDonalds hamburgers I used to buy as a kid (for less than a dollar).   

But I did sort of chase the Da Vinci/Dan Brown trend with Chase. However, I did so many years after Da Vinci was published and I also did so by incorporating all the typical Zandri pile driving plotting, romance, mystery, and action. I also...and this is key here...love the genre to death (if you don't love what you're writing it's gonna suck). In the end, the series has gone on to serve me well with tens of thousands of units sold. Chase Baker isn't being sold at the Pope's house yet, but hey, you never know. Maybe I should email him or ring him up next time I'm in country ("Hey, Pope, there's a guy named Zandri on the phone for you").

I don't always stick to the same genre. But all my books have one common denominator. They are thrillers through and through. Some series and stand-alones are darker than others, but all of them contain the Zandri thrills you've come to know and insist upon. And hopefully, I'm still learning and still getting better at my craft.

Speaking of switching up genres, I'm dipping my arthritic big toe into the Cyberpunk and Dystopian Thriller genres with Primary Termination, which is presently available for pre-order (launch day is August 16, but it's presently available in paperback) at a special, limited time price (the point is to sell a lot right out of the gate and impress the Amazon algos). My editor and beta readers tell me it's one of my best novels to date, and I believe them because I wrote it (ha-ha again). But I'll let you and Pope be the judge.

   Grab Primary Termination today, before it's too late...

WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM

"Buy Primary Termination or the author gets it!!!"

When the Magic Rubs Off

So I've been invited to two cocktail parties tonight in New York City. They are put on by two of my publishers (on behalf of Thrillerfest), one of whom really wanted me down there. Instead, I'm choosing to spend the weekend, writing, fishing, eating, drinking, reading, living the life.

I shake my head and smile because there was a time not so long ago, I would have loved heading to the cocktail parties (and crashing a few also Haha), rubbing shoulders with some pretty big authors, schmoozing with editors, agents and booksellers, shaking hands and just generally kissing ass.

But things have changed.

Maybe it's the politics of it all, or perhaps it's the been-there-done-that-ness of it all. Perhaps it's my hybrid author business model. Hell, maybe at my age I just can't be bothered with it anymore. Plus I'm just a little obsessed with fly fishing almost as much as I'm obsessed with the daily word count, and it's supposed to be a beautiful weekend.

Listen, I'm all about supporting my fellow authors and paying a friendly visit to my publishers, but on occasion, it just feels better being away from New York City for a while...how did I put it during my acceptance speech for the ITW Thriller Award in 2015?...The ground zero for literary success and tragedy.

WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM

The Golden Age of Writing Is Still Here...

Ten years ago you could indie publish a novel, set the price at 0.99 and watch it rise to the top of the Amazon charts. This, almost brainless marketing tactic, is what resulted in my selling hundreds of thousands of eBooks, which led to some pretty lucrative publishing deals. It also meant that I went from making zero money with my fiction, to making a nice living. And that's after having scored a major six-figure, two book deal (the majority of those funds went to finance my first divorce, but I'll save that for another blog).

Fast forward ten years and simply setting your indie books at 0.99 is no longer a valid marketing strategy. In fact, so many books proliferate the marketplace now, that an author needs to be a little more creative when it comes to rising above all that white noise. After a couple of down years, this month (July) will be one of my best on record. Not only have I signed a "nice" deal with Oceanview Publishing for the September 2020 publication of arguably my best standalone to date, The Girl Who Wasn't There (the ink isn't dry on the contract and my first advance check arrived yesterday), I've made some significant changes in how I go about marketing my indie list.

For the longest time, I avoided educating myself on Amazon Ads. I would simply throw together some keywords, create an ad, and then wait to see if it stuck. Bad way to go about advertising, it turns out, but a good way to stuff Mr. Bezos's already stuffed pockets. Finally, I decided to invest in Mark Dawson' Ads for Authors course (no I am not an affiliate, just a fan), and it most definitely proved one hell of an investment. It's not that I didn't know what I was doing when it came to Amazon ads, it's more like I was blind to their possibilities and rather careless in my tactics, kind of like a parent who tells his kids to fend for themselves for supper. For instance, I might look at the ACOS (ad cost) and if the percentage of ad spend was more than I was receiving in sales profit, which was almost always the case, I would immediately stop the ad. But Mark's course spells out, in detail, how even a negative ad spend can still prove profitable. Just this little tidbit of info alone has become rather valuable to my overall strategy. It was a wake up call.

The course has also taught me another valuable lesson in terms of scaling my ads. Don't just create them and forget them. Tweak them, find out which keywords are working and which aren't. Most of all, if your ad is proving profitable, copy it and scale it. I've also created a separate portfolio for each book which makes a huge difference when it comes to both organizing my ads and determining what's working and what's not.

But Amazon Ads are only a part of the story. I use a marketing manager to take care of my promos. I have a Book Bub for The Shroud Key this month thanks to his efforts, and he is presently seeking ways to boost audio sales. Add to that a subscriber list that should hit my first 10K by the end of the year (some authors have hundreds of thousands of subscribers!!!!), and things are most definitely looking up. My overall philosophy is a simple one. If many hybrid and indie authors are making mid-six and even seven figure incomes, why can't I? I'm currently writing on average a novel per month. I have the material, the reviews, and the street cred (The Thriller Award, the bestseller lists, the sales, etc.). Now it's a matter of scaling my business way up.

Being a hybrid author is most definitely not as easy as it was back in 2010 or 2011. You have to chop through the thick bush in order to reach the valley of good and plenty. A little education definitely goes a long way, and I can see myself reaching my financial goals so long as I continue to adjust to the times and continue to view my writing as not only an art, but a long term freelance career (Free being the key word here. I haven't worked a real job in 20 years and don't intend to ever go back).

The golden age of writing is still here. In fact, it never left. You just have to make more of an effort to seek it out.

WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM
     

The Hybrid Author Mindset

So I've had this non-fiction idea for a some time now. It originally started out as an article but ran way too long for publication in any journal or magazine, which signaled to me that it should be a short book instead. Part memoir, part confession, part instructional how-to, The Hybrid Author Mindset will offer writers a no bullshit peak at what it's like to be a full-time professional writer who publishes independently and traditionally.

It begins with my scoring that quarter-million dollar deal I've spoken so much about in the late '90s (plus lucrative deals that have followed) and all the stupid mistakes a young early thirty-something piss-and-vinegar-filled young man can possibly make to screw the deal up, not to mention his love life. But it also busts through the publishing myths, such as advances. Think a $100K advance is a big deal? Think it will save you from the poor house? Think again.

Here's an excerpt from the The Hybrid Author Mindset that just might rattle your cage:

So you finally nailed the big contract. Your agent just called, all out of breath and beyond excited. She can hardly wait to tell you that you have been offered $100,000 for a two book, hardback, soft, eBook, and audio world rights deal. You’re about to become the darling of New York City and the talk of the town. You’re do excited, you scream! All your office workers become so alarmed they think someone has died. But the only thing that’s died is your need for a day job. Everyone is so excited for you they take you out for drinks at Happy Hour.

So here’s what happens over the course of the next few months. You sign the big contract. In turn, your agent sends you the signing portion of the advance. Since this contract is for $100K that means it’s $50K per book. The signing portion of the first advance might be $25,000. That sounds like a lot and it is a lot. But after the agent takes her 15% you are down to $21,250. Next in line is Uncle Sam and his cut which, if you have a good accountant and get lucky, might be 25%. Now you’re down to $15,937.50. Okay, still not bad. But conservatively speaking, if it costs you $4,000 per month to live, you’re going to run out of money in just little bit shy of four months. If you have a savings put away, you’ll have to start digging into it. If you don’t have a savings, you might have to start thinking about asking your boss for your old job back. But you would rather hang from the ceiling by your fingernails than do that. You’re about to be a mega bestseller. Everyone thinks you’re a major success, even before the book is released. You have your pride to think about.

Plus you have another $25K coming for the first book, right? So what’s to worry about? You pull out the credit cards and cover yourself until you get the next round of monies. Easy Peasy. That next round of cash comes in say, six or eight months down the road when you deliver your revised manuscript. If…the important word is IF here…your revised manuscript is accepted, you will receive the Delivery and Acceptance portion of your first advance. Let’s say it’s $12,500. After you do all the math you’re left with about $7K and change. That might last you two months if you stretch it out. It most certainly doesn’t cover the credit cards you’ve been racking up. But you’re stubborn and you look forward to the next and final portion of your advance which will arrive on publication day…

…four months later.

Okay, so it’s the big day you’ve been waiting for. Publication day. You just got a nice check for $12,500 minus the agent’s fee (You’ve decided to forgo Uncle Sam’s portion on this one, because you’re book is going to be a bestseller and you’ll earn out the initial $50K in a matter of weeks when the book lands on the New York Times bestseller list). You have a check in your pocket for $10,625 and even if your credit card balance is more than that (and don’t forget the back taxes), you feel on top of the world. Your author copies arrive, you take a ton of selfies for Facebook and Instagram, you collect a ton of “likes”, you do a couple signings in your home town, and maybe, just maybe if you live in proximity to NYC, you do a signing at the B&N in Union Square. The reviews come out and in general they are very kind. Maybe you didn’t get the New York Times review you were dreaming of, but you did get one in People and Entertainment Weekly. In a word, you are a rock star.

Then something happens…The Big Yawn.

Your book doesn’t make the New York Times bestseller list. It doesn’t even make the USA Today bestseller list which is easier. But it does make several Amazon lists which is encouraging, or so your editor tells you over the phone. The troubling thing however, is that as time goes on, you notice your conversations with both your editor and agent are becoming shorter and shorter. They don’t seem to be as emotionally invested as they once were. It’s troubling because even before your second book in the contract comes out, you realize you desperately need another very big contract in order to get yourself out of debt.

You go to work on the next novel. You write frantically and finish it in record time. You hand it in to you editor. You don’t hear from him for weeks, months. You email him and your agent incessantly. Finally, the editor emails you back. He says he’s read the book and “likes” it. However, seeing as it looks like you’re not going to earn out the first half of your advance, they are going to forgo the hardback publication and go straight to mass market paper and eBook. You feel your heart drop into your stomach.

The year goes buy and you receive the balance of your $100,000 contact, or $50,000. After your agent takes what he’s owed, you make the horrible decision to keep the entire $42,500 since you’re in such debt you can’t possibly pay the $10,000+ plus federal and state tax bill owed. As it is, you already owe more than $5K to the IRS from the previous advance check.

You call your editor. He takes the call which is encouraging. You tell him about your next book project…a high concept thriller. But all you get is dead air, which is not only discouraging, it is downright disconcerting. He calmly explains to you that it’s probably in your best interest to pursue another publisher for your next book project. He hangs up. You’ll never hear from him again.

 
After living on the $42,500 for the year, you are dead broke, in serious debt to the credit card 

companies, and the IRS. Your agent and editor don’t return your phone calls or emails. You don’t

have a job or any means of income. You’re a good if not great writer with two books to your credit, 

yet you have a very tough road ahead of you. 


The point to the book, other than to inform while entertain, is to encourage authors to build up both a 
traditional list as well as a very healthy indie list. That way, when one media outlet goes dry (or goes belly up, or parts ways with your editorial staff, or just plain becomes disinterested)...and 
believe me, it will go dry at some point...you have other outlets to rely on. Take it from one who
knows, those authors who don't treat this game like a business are doomed to failure. Just ask James
Patterson. He's made a fortune by treating authorship like a business. 
Methinks you should too. 

Get The hybrid Author Mindset. 

 WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM

Wattpad's brilliant young Ben Sobieck...

Ben and somebody else mucking it up in NYC

...Is in the house. He and thee have been big buds for almost a decade now and I seen him go from twenty-something newbie to thirty-something professional editor, multi-book author, entrepreneur and now, Wattpad aficionado. Want to check out a really cool product for writing on your laptop? Check out Ben's The Writer's Glove, which I believe was endorsed by a major television news outlet, or something like it. Now Ben is getting into coffee as well. Writer's Block coffee. Is there's nothing he can't do? I'm not entirely sure. He has the guts to try new things and approach old problems like finding a publisher and even a Hollywood producer by forging a new path towards the end goal. For Ben, Wattpad, not a literary agent, is that path.   

But enough of my yackin'...Here's Ben: 

If you follow the Vox or Vince's work in general, you know he isn't afraid to try something new. I should know. He graciously gave me the reins for three Chase Baker stories. If that isn't looking fear in the face, I don't know what is.

That's a quality I've always admired in Mr. Zandri, and it becomes more relevant the more things change. Take Wattpad, for example. In fact, take this entire video.

 Then take in a Chase Baker story over on Wattpad here: https://www.wattpad.com/story/50524321-chase-baker-the-vikings%27-secret-a-chase-baker

Grab The Writer's Guide to Wattpad
 
Grab Chase Baker and the Viking's Secret

WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM

Promoting your book could become illegal...

"Hi, I'm William Devane." Just joking...

More specifically I mean, promoting your eBook over various "home run" sites that boost your rank from never-never land to the top 100 of the Overall Kindle Bestseller List in sixty seconds flat. I exaggerate, but you get the point. The top 100 was and is the most coveted place to be and the place you could consistently count on to make you a whole bunch of cash say every two or three months. But more recently, KDP has been coming down on those authors who appear to be manipulating sales rank. Doesn't matter if you're legit or pushing books written by someone in the Philippines and then paying for KU clicks in Hong Kong. Either way you're gonna get busted.

The old days

In the old days, say pre-2014, there were all sorts of ways to shoot up the ranks. Of course, the big Kahuna was Book Bub. Used to be, I could count on three of those bad boys per year. Add in a fourth if my publisher Thomas & Mercer nailed me one. But Book Bub seems more intent on handing over promotions not to indies so much as the big four publishing houses now. I'm not sure why this is happening, but perhaps it has something to do with the quality of the books they are pushing, or perhaps the big 4 are paying more for the privilege of BB's super promo power.

But even if you are lucky enough to nail a Book Bub, or something just as powerful, chances are Amazon might strip you of your rank since it reflects a book that shot up the charts way too fast. That is a no-no these days, so I'm told. It remains to be seen if I ever have a ranking stripped, but from what my sources are telling me, the situation has become a source of concern.

Amazon can kill your account

What an author has to remember is that Amazon can kill your account at any time, and they don't need a reason to do it. If they suspect foul play, legitimate or not, they can come down very hard with sanctions such as taking away your KU account (this happened to me once, but they realized it was a mistake), or something else, such as the ability to leave reviews (I currently cannot leave reviews since I'm guessing I was suspected of review swapping, which I have never done).

Amazon Giveaways

Recently, I was also told I could no longer run Amazon Giveaways. After many calls and emails attempting to find out why I could not run giveaways, I hit a brick wall. But I suspect the privilege is somehow tied to the review thing. Also, this isn't a KDP issue, but a seller issue. Other sellers have run giveaways on my behalf, but I'm probably not going to run many of them anymore since they are no longer the effective marketing tool they once were.

The solution? 

The solution...and it always seems to come back to this...is to simply keep on writing good books while building your email lists. If you wish to utilize giveaways as a form of publicity, go to Good Reads or Book Funnel or Istafreebie. I do all three. Slow steady growth aided by AMS and FB ads is the ticket these days. There's no getting around it.
  
Slower writers are screwed

The problem slower writers are going to have is that their sales will trail off. They will eventually get tired of earning less and less, and many will drop out of the fold altogether, and the indie playing field will be leveled. Perhaps this is something Amazon and KDP inevitably want. The future remains to be seen. One thing is for sure, the indie side of things is not only always changing, but it can be volatile. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Publish many different ways. Become a hybrid like me. But as always, proceed at your own risk.

WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM
   

Is it possible to make a living writing fiction?

Signing The Corruptions earlier this year at Mysterious Bookshop in NYC

Probably not if you set out to write literary fiction (I recall one of my assigned reads back in MFA writing school was The Lime Twig by John Hawkes. I nearly barfed it was so boring). Literary authors, in my mind at least, view a commercially successful book as a failure, which is why so many literary writers must teach to make a living. It's different for a genre author. We write books for the masses and gladly take their casheshe for our efforts and in the end, much of our work stands up to the test of fine literature anyway. But I'm getting ahead of my skis here.



The Experiment

This past year (2017), was more or less an experiment precipitated by my having been suddenly fired from the one steady trade journalism gig I had going. It brought in a nice baseline income so that I didn't have to worry so much about royalties and/or advances. Plus I loved the gig. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely needed the book royalties if I was going to survive financially. It's just that because I enjoyed a writing/editing income separate from the fiction, I didn't wake up suddenly in the middle of the night wondering what I could be doing to sell more books.

So, last year, when that ten year gig suddenly vanished due to a cooperate buyout, I found myself with a choice. I could either look for more journalism-freelance writing gigs, or I could concentrate entirely on my fiction efforts and hope that I brought in enough money to at least keep the cable TV on.

Work, work, work

It turned out to be the most productive year in my twenty year professional writing career. I wrote six 60K+ word novels, a couple novellas, and several short stories. In fact, I wrote and published so much stuff that if I write not a single word this year, I am all set for publishing (both indie and traditional) well  into 2019 and perhaps 2020. How did I do it? Simple. I dragged my ass out of bed every Monday morning and set it in the writing chair just like any other working stiff. I wrote whether I wanted to or not (In all candor, I pretended to be an employee of say FOX, and they were expecting me to put out at least one novella per month, or no pay check. The ruse worked!).

Exploring Central American ruins and fictional inspiration this past June

Dollars and cents

Ok, so in terms of dollars and cents, what does all this mean? I'm not going to be entirely transparent here but according to the tax documents I've received thus far, I made a solid mid-five-figures. In terms of more recent years, it wasn't all that great, but this is the nature of the business. Some years you're hitting home runs and scoring major deals and you're pulling in a comfortable six figures whether you like it or not. Other years are down years. Production years I call them. Years when you're working your tail off and not a whole lot is coming in, but the important thing is you're making a living.


 A smart move

For once in my life I made a smart move: Every advance I received (and I took in quite a few of them) over the past five years from agented deals, I invested in mutual funds, which means those monies are working for me on a monthly basis. Another smart thing I did was to invest a big portion of my royalties into my indie books. When you invest in creating a new book, it's almost as if you're buying real estate. Eventually the return on investment will be enough to pay back what you spent and earn you a nice 10-20% per year of passive income from that point on. The key, is to write more quality books that will stand the test of time.


Steady growth 

2017 proved to be an interesting experiment. There were no big advances (I did receive a small four-figure advance from an independent press), no big Book Bubs (I had two Europe only BBs), and no one single title entered into the Amazon Top 100 (that I can recall anyway). Like I've intuited in previous posts, it was a year of steady growth, steady writing, steady sales. And in the end, I earned enough to make a living. I'm actually quite shocked, to be honest. If this were the old days and hybrid authorship were an impossible dream, I would have found myself begging for a job ("Welcome to McDonald's, can I take your order?").

Instead, I'm able to do something most writers only dream about. I can get up every morning, sit myself down at my laptop in my PJs, and write my particular brand of noir and hard-boiled fiction. Hopefully my books are more interesting than the Lime Twig (No offense, Mr. Hawkes). And hopefully they keep on selling so I can continue to work at the only job there is for me.

WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM

Pieces of Mind

Fiction isn't my only shtick. I've been writing non-fiction and essays since I first picked up a pencil. The topics I've covered over the years range from fly fishing, to travel, to architecture, to hunting, to coping with a loved one's depression. I've also written about writing.

So many books exist on the Amazon shelves dealing with how to become a bestselling author or how to game the system that it's impossible to hear yourself think over all the noise. But few books actually deal with the what it's like to be a writer, how it affects your relationships, what it's like to be alone all the time on a day to day basis, making a living by making stuff up.

My new book (errr one of my new books), Pieces of Mind: Fictional Truths & Non-Fictional Lies about Writing and the Writing Life, is one of the only ones out there that not only attacks the subject of "on writing," but that also deals with the "writing life." Here's the official product description: 
  
Brand new from New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Vincent Zandri comes a non-fiction volume that will hold special appeal for those writers, new or established, who've enjoyed books on writing by Stephen King, Charles Bukoswki, Scott Nicholson, Chris Fox, Wayne Stinnett, and more.

Featuring a brand new introduction by the author on how he willingly gave up his birthright as the heir apparent to a multi-million dollar commercial construction firm in order to pursue his writing passion, Pieces of Mind contains essays on topics as diverse as lost love, sex, divorce, coping with a child's severe depression, experiencing Carnival in Venice, to sharing a first beer with your teenage son. But every word is delivered under the umbrella of a full-time fiction writer and freelance journalist trying to make sense of the lush world that surrounds him.

You'll also find "how to" pieces on going indie, staying traditional, and even hybrid authorship. You'll discover how Zandri sold 100,000 books in a single month, and how to keep on writing when you don't even want to get out of bed in the morning. Originally featured in publications such as Conor Friedersdorf's Culture 11 Magazine, Literarily Speaking, Writer's Digest, and other now archived pieces originally written for The Vincent Zandri Vox, these essays will make you laugh, cry, cringe, and think. Most of all they will want to make you drop everything to write your own story, be it fiction, non-fiction, or a fictional truth.

From the ITW Thriller and PWA Shamus Award Winning author of the No. 1 Bestselling novels, THE REMAINS and EVERYTHING BURNS, as well as new bestsellers like THE ASHES, ORCHARD GROVE and THE EMBALMER, comes the first in a series of books ON WRITING.

If you love short, sharp vignette style essays that get right to the point, while kicking aside political correctness, you'll love Pieces of Mind.

WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM