Monthly Archives: November 2018

The NHL: 1st Quarter Report

NY Rangers

We have just past the 20 game mark of the season and I am happy to say that watching the NY Rangers isn’t a form of torture anymore. The first 10 games were a horror show and we’re now in the middle of a win streak that no one thought was possible (8-1-1 if I’m remembering right).

Going from 3-7-1 to 11-8-2 for 24 points has jumped the Rangers into second place in the Eastern Conference, which is nuts. 1 point ahead of the Stanley Cup Champions, the Washington Capitals (first game against them is this Saturday). Other important numbers: 14th in the league, Nashville is 1st with 31 points. In last place, Los Angeles can be found with 15 points. Most of the league is bunched in the middle with 21-25 points.

Coach Quinn is amazing. I think that’s the best summary. After the team was playing like they were in high school, he cracked the whip to make the professional athletes remember that they are professional athletes. He’s the opposite of Alain Vigneault. He knows how to use younger players (and actually talk to them) and if you aren’t pulling your weight, you get benched to think about what you are doing. Vigneault let the veterans get away with murder and it stifled the team.

The rookies are starting to get comfortable and it’s a blast to see it happen. Jimmy Vesey is always getting work done. Neil Pionk is having a blast. Philip Chytil has broken the seal and scored once in each of the last 4 games. Brett Howden is getting better and better. The team is still in flux though. Zuccarello and Buchnevich (who was on a roll) are hurt. Skjei and Smith swing from good to garbage seemingly by the minute. It looks like Namestnikov has finally woken up and Shattenkirk is doing a fine job on defense (it’s clear why he was picked up last season and after his terrible injury it’s great to see him play). Lias Andersson hasn’t scored yet and is looking to get the breakthrough that Chytil just struck. Ryan Spooner was traded for Ryan Strome from Ottawa so we’ll see how that works out. Vinni Lettieri was sent back to Hartford to cook some more. Jesper Fast has no show stopper moments. In fact, he’s oddly cold with only 1 goal and 6 assists so far.

The internet scuttlebutt has raised this question from this new success streak: Where are we in the rebuilding process? This usually takes years and it’s awful in the beginning. Hayes and Kreider are playing very well (Hayes, at 25 is starting to hit his stride) and they will have targets on their back for other teams to trade for him. Hayes especially as he’s young and his contract ends this year. If they end up doing well, they get no more early draft selections for next year and that’ll affect the rebuild.

These two guys are what I’d consider the old guards of the Rangers. They are the players the rookies can follow as mentors in their new NHL careers. You need a core to build a team around, but will management jettison them (for something worthwhile instead of letting them go for nothing) in favor of looking for the future (which hasn’t been done in years, instead paying out the nose for quick “fixes”), or re-sign them to use as the team core to build around? Skjei was signed to a big contract and he’s not living up to expectations but I find it hard to believe they’ll give up on him.

If they can maintain this kind of success it’d be nuts to break up the team. But I have no idea if it’s possible. It’s so early in the season and a big factor when we get closer to the playoffs is how healthy the team is. Henrik is playing incredibly well but is he going to get burned out playing as much as he has? Georgiev has played a handful of games so far. He isn’t going to get better by sitting it out all the time and leaning on Henrik like he’s still 26 years old is dangerous.

This could break in any direction has each week passes. They could collapse again or they could make the playoffs. A cup run would be something for the history books. Or they skid somewhere to the middle of the league and another round of drastic trades are made come February.

Regardless of what happens, I’ll be watching it unfold.

The Darkest Winter Update 13

The Darkest Winter

Don’t give up. Books have a million lives. It doesn’t matter if no one has read it yet and it has been out a while. It’s always new to the reader encountering it for the first time. And be patient. Success doesn’t happen overnight. Expecting it to will only lead to disappointment.                  –David Gaughran

This is good advice for me to keep in mind as I look at my sales report for November. My marketing reach since launch has gotten to everyone in my immediate circle. Breaking out of that circle is incredibly difficult. My slow sales show that and I’ve learned some things in the past month that I’m going to share now.

The Darkest Winter is published through Amazon. Since the start, I never considered selling the paperback through anyone but Amazon. With their Extended Distribution channel, I thought I’d be covered well enough for any bookstores, libraries, schools to buy the book if they wanted it (and that would be a serious marketing win if I got sales through this channel. I haven’t but knowing that the book is so widely available has been reassuring). For the ebook edition, I planned on keeping it exclusive to Kindle for 3-6 months. That 3 months is getting very close and that brings me to the point of this post.

Amazon’s Extended Distribution is garbage. There is no way to tell if a book has sold through that channel until after it has shipped. Amazon’s printers may not be the one who prints the book for this channel so there is no telling what the quality is. It’s possible that your book won’t be available to the distributors in this channel (like Baker and Taylor) for some unknown glitch that Amazon is “working on.”  It’s basically impossible to find out what’s going on with this channel it’s so buried and shady. The royalties are garbage, almost to the point where it isn’t worth selling it.

I found all of this out because last month I organized a deal with the North Haledon Library for their book club. I huge sale for me and the order was placed through Baker and Taylor on Oct. 16th. Three weeks later, nothing had happened. I could not find out why. So I organized to get the book directly from Amazon using my Author Discount. So the books are coming to me next week, I’ll hand them off to the library and I’ll actually make some money in the process. It’s mindboggling stupid how this has worked.

You know what else is crazy? When you dig around the help pages on CreateSpace, there is a line that says this….I’m paraphrasing but this is the message:

ProTip: Don’t use our Extended Distribution feature. Use another company, they are way better at it.

So I’ve deselected that one in my account because it doesn’t do anything. This has led me to do research on other companies and I’m on the fence about getting the paperback available wider. A decent amount of re-setup is necessary and I’m not sure if it’s worth it. For example, if I wanted to get the book onto Barnes and Noble shelves I gotta get an appropriate price barcode and another ISBN barcode on there, and submit all sorts of stuff to B&N and wait 3 months for a yes or no.

Since I know I’m going to expand the reach of the ebook, that’s more in the forefront for me. Get it on Kobo, iBook, Nook, Google Play, etc. That’s going to happen I just need to decide when. Amazon Select (a minimum 90-day commitment) gets the ebook into their Kindle Unlimited and borrowing program which nets money on page reads. I had over 3.000 in September and about 1,000 in October and much less this month so I’m not sure if it’s worth keeping TDW exclusive for another 90 days. The royalties for this service are super weird as it’s based on the month’s allowance (I think September was around $22 million) that is divided up by all page reads. I haven’t seen any royalties from that yet.

So, come January or March, the ebook will be available basically everywhere.

So while this has been frustrating, I’m really close to 100 books sold. That’s awesome, to say the least. 9 fantastic reviews are on Amazon right now and I’d love more. I’m going to think local for now I think. With the success of the NH library sale, I’m going to check around for other book clubs. Plus I’m going to speak to the group at NH so that’ll be fun and a great way to get the word out further. I think this could be the path to greater success.

I gotta get the gears spinning on this and we’ll see what happens.

Speaking Out Loud

The Darkest Winter

Last Thursday I did my first public speaking gig at the Hasbrouck Heights Library for my book, The Darkest Winter. There were around 20 people in attendance and I’m happy with how it went.

To my surprise, I wasn’t nervous going into it, or at the event. I attribute a lot of that to my writer’s group, where I’ve essentially been speaking to a group of people almost every week for the past 4 years. I’ve become much more confident in speaking with people in a group setting and because we talk in depth about topics, I’m also better at organizing my thoughts and preparing what I want to say. It also helped that I know this content inside and out so my confidence in what I was speaking about couldn’t have been higher.

I was the 6th presenter and while my intro was a bit sloppy (I forgot some of the smooth lines I wanted to say so things came out a bit disjointed) I think I did really well with the segment I read. I chose Chapter 22 which is my favorite section of the book. It’s one of the shortest chapters with a lof of suspense and there is a lot of dialog which made it easier to read aloud. I also think it’s one of the strongest examples of the quality of my writing so as a preview to get people interested, it checks all the boxes. It felt engaging, I got a lot of compliments, and I met some great people. I’d call it a success.

I’m most surprised at how much I enjoyed it. It was more of a community talent showcase than a focused meeting for author engagement so I didn’t get to speak as much about the book and the writing process as I would have liked to but I think it was a great initial step to do more speaking events in the future. So far it’s one of the best elements of being an author I’ve experienced so far. I wonder if it made me feel so good because it fed into my narcissistic side since it was all about me and my work, but maybe it’s not so bad to get your ego some attention once in a while.

The Horror! Part 4

Movies

A trip down Stephen King Lane!

1922– This story reminded me a lot of the kind of pieces that Edgar Allan Poe wrote. Wilfred James is a farmer struggling to make ends meet in 1922. When he gets the idea that the best fix for their problems is to kill his wife for financial gain, he convinces his son to help. Like any good story with a moral center, this action by Wilfred has consequences he never could have foreseen. It’s a slow ratchet up the hill of insanity for Wilfred. A plan that seems like the best and only way out for him and his son to prosper, one he plans out as best he can, completely ruins his family. The damage radiates for from his home as well. A very telling line early on is one where Wilfred narrates ” I discovered something that night that most people never have to learn. Murder is sin. Murder is damnation. But murder is also work.” I liked this a lot for the road it traveled. How Wilfred, who did everything to hold on to his pitiful pride, lead himself to bring hell on Earth. What he held dearest, his land and his son, not only continued to drift away but also rotted from the inside out because of him.  I wasn’t sure what to expect going into this but came away with an appreciation for another Stephen King concoction.

Gerald’s Game– This tale takes place almost entirely in one location. I’d consider this a “bottle” episode where the razor-sharp focus is on one character and their journey of self-discovery. Here, the character study is on Jessie. She and her husband Gerald go away for a weekend. The spark in their marriage has been on life support for some time and the idea for them to be alone and explore new things with each other on a lovers retreat seems like a good one. It goes wrong quickly and Jessie finds herself alone and trapped in the house. Once she’s alone I wasn’t sure where the story would go but I liked where it went. A deep dive into Jessie’s past makes her confront her long locked away secrets and find a possible path to save herself. I saw Jessie a certain way at the start and found her to be completely different at the end, something I always look for and appreciate when it’s done well. Things get weird, in typical Stephen King fashion as he explores childhood trauma and emotional shackles that can weigh anyone down, even if they aren’t conscious of it. Mix in flashbacks, hallucinations. a few boogymen, a dash of ‘oh nooooo’ gore, and you have a Game you won’t soon forget.  Another one I was pleasantly surprised with.