Kickstarter and Book Funding

So I haven’t updated the blog very recently. I apologize for that one. In trying to get back to regular updates, I figured I would do a quick entry on Kickstarter and its use for funding indie books / authors. Don’t know what Kickstarter is? Check their page out here. Kickstarter is a website that allows users to raise money for any project they are working on to support their work. While many of the initial projects involved centered around music production, video game studio foundings, and event fundraising, there has been a noticeable spike in the number of authors using Kickstarter to fund their first books.

This has caused some controversy, moreso from within the indie writing community than from without. I’ve rarely heard much support from indie authors for this type of fundraising. Much of the opinion coming from within the community seems to indicate that using kickstarter or other fundraising tools is akin to ‘begging’ for money, or assuming that you should be paid well for your work before you actually sell it. Now, to a certain degree I can agree with that. There is no reason to assume that just because someone is putting up a novel fundraiser that they are a good writer or that their book will sell. In some ways, perhaps it feels to many people that this is just another version of vanity press, but instead you get other people to pay for it for you.

OK, well, in case you hadn’t guessed, I’m a huge fan of Kickstarter. While I’m not likely to use it myself, that’s more because writing is a part-time job / hobby for me. When you raise through kickstarter you generally have rewards for the various donation amounts, much like donating to public TV or radio. For me, I don’t want to have the burden of both writing the novel and making sure I get the various copies of hardbound, paperback, and electronic books, tshirts, stationary, etc shipped out to everyone who backed me. Maybe I’m lazy like that. But I think opponents of this method should sit down and examine just exactly what they are critiqueing about this process. Here are a couple of arguments I’ve seen against using Kickstarter.

- You might be supporting a bad writer who only makes indie authors look bad: Well, that’s true of course, but that’s the same argument people use against Amazon and their self publishing. The idea that you should judge someone’s work, especially before it is even completed, based solely on the fact that they are an unknown player is a little risky. Mainstream authors had the same reaction when indie authors started becoming successful using epublishing with Amazon / B&N/ Smashwords. Indie authors were seen as diluting the quality of books available to the public. Some of my favorite series come from indie authors, so I take that idea with a grain of salt. There are plenty of traditionally published, New York Times best selling authors who I think dilute the quality of writing in the world, but that’s for another post. If you use funding sources and don’t have a contract with a trad publisher, you need to reevaluate why exactly you are against someone getting funding up front based on a possible lack of quality while you publish your own work for free with no risk.

- Authors are basically begging for money and that is demeaning: Isn’t this pretty much what authors have done for hundreds of years? What exactly is an advance payment for a book, other than giving you funding to focus on writing and not worry about bills? I get the feeling people don’t realize that Kickstarting for money is the independent version of getting a contract with an advance. If anything, we should be applauding these people for convincing others to fund their projects where many authors must struggle to piece together a novel while working full time jobs elsewhere.

- You shouldn’t be paid for work you haven’t done and there is no guarantee you will finish: I think if people are investing in a project, they take the risk it will never be finished, just as a publisher takes the risk that an author might never get a book through to completion. Now those two situations have different outcomes. Trad authors will probably have signed a contract, so legality comes into play there, but with Kickstarter, you invest in projects at your own risk. The site reviews each submitted project and only posts ones that look legit, though I’m sure a few bad ones leak through. But it really is up to each individual backer to investigate the authors and examine the book they propose to write to see if it looks like a good investment.

Ultimately, I’m not hoping to change your mind just through this post. But I think skeptics of Kickstarter would do well to just browse through the site for ten minutes and see all the amazing projects you can fund. Then ask yourself, if all these other people can get funding to produce awesome content, why shouldn’t authors be able to as well?

Scope’s War – Sneak Peek #3

It’s time for Sneak Peek #3 everyone! Today I’m going to introduce you to a few of the characters in the novel. Nothing too in depth, but enough for you to get a sense of who everyone is.

Alex ‘Scope’ Samuelson – The protagonist of the story, Alex is the also the main point-of-view for the novel. The story follows Alex from the death of his parents to his training in Mercenary school and ultimately to his role in the coming conflict.

Rachel Samuelson – Alex’s sister who leaves for the Capital in San Jose after the death of her parents. While she is concerned for Alex, she trusts his judgement and sets off on her own journey of self discovery.

Randy Rourke – Alex’s neighbor who comes to help Scope and his sister after the tragic loss of their parents. Mr. Rourke served with Alex’s father during the Northern Wars, but he has many secrets which he keeps to himself.

Jordan Hawthorne – Mayor of Oakhurst, the city Alex lives in before the loss of his parents. Also mother to one of the young men who attacked Alex’s family. She carry’s a grudge against Alex and swears to see his life end in ruin.

Darren ‘Dynamo’ Blake – The head of Lionheart Security, Blake is another friend of Alex’s father who take the young man under his wing. Blake is the driving force behind Alex joining Mercenary school. Blake seems to have plans of his own that partially revolve around Alex, but like Rourke, he is a man of few words and fewer confidants.

Cassie ‘Gemini’ Hawthorne – One of Alex’s peers and team members, Cassie’s relationship to Jordan Hawthorne is a mystery to Alex in the beginning. Though she and Alex are close, she fears attachments due to her own losses early in life. Like Alex, Cassie’s expertise in weapons lies in long range recon and sniper skills.

Shawn ‘Goliath’ Woods – Alex’s best friend from Basic Training, Shawn serves as Alex’s wing man in all things. Shawn is a heavy weapons expert with a passion machine guns.

Jimmy ‘Dash’ Sanders – Alex’s protege, Jimmy trained with Alex, Shawn, and Cassie, and looks up to all of them. The others consider him both a companion and a younger brother of sorts. Jimmy dislikes fighting, but like being part of the team is often called upon to run enemy lines or blockades.

Sebastian ‘Ghost’ Malwood – Sebastian is something of a rival to Alex. Raised in a powerful and influential family, Sebastian sees everyone else, especially Alex, as being beneath him. Sebastian also has his eyes on Cassie, though it’s not entirely clear what their actual relationship entails.

Jeremy ‘Reaper’ Reeves – Sebastian’s friend and constant companion, Jeremy revels in conflict and takes joy in visiting pain on others.

Drill Sergeant, Roderick ‘Semtex’ Dempsey – Dempsey trains the new group of mercenaries before taking his spot in Blake’s company. Alex regards him as something of an older brother. Dempsey is outwardly honest and rarely lets his anger get the best of him. Dempsey see’s Alex’s potential early on and helps foster the younger man’s abilities.

Cool New Site – HubPages

Hey there! So life has once again pushed out writing a bit and I’m stalled at about 28k words right now.  Haven’t had much time to work on writing, but will be getting back there soon enough. In the mean time, I’ve found an awesome new site, called HubPages. It functions somewhat like a blog, but more like if you were a spider and each strand of your web was a mini blog, if that makes any sense at all. If you want to get a better feel for it, stop by and check out my profile. I’ve started up two ‘Hubs’, one on writing a novel and one on getting into the game industry (two topics I have experience with ).

http://buschwc.hubpages.com/

Scope’s War – Sneak Peek #2

Hey there and welcome to the second Sneak Peek into my WIP Young Adult novel, Scope’s War. Today I wanted to share a brief update on the writing and introduce the background for the story a little bit.

I’m closing in on finishing Chapter 6. When the chapter is finished, the manuscript will stand at roughly 25,000 words. The story that has been plotted out runs about 21 chapters total. Extrapolating out, I’m looking at the final product being about 90,000 words in length. I don’t want to constrict myself into writing a set number of words, but based on the length of each previous chapter it seems like a good guess.

Territories
Now for the tasty morsels of information I have for you. Scope’s War is set during a factious period in American history. The story takes place in the late 21st century, circa 2090. Scope, the protagonist, is a Mercenary serving with a company who hail from Monterey, California. In this slightly distopian future, the 50 states of the union have reorganized into Territories. Most of the story takes place in two of those; first in the Pacific Territory, which is made up of Northern California, Oregon, Southern Washington, and parts of Idaho and Nevada. The second is the Central States Territory, which is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. This territory is comprised of Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, Southern Minnesota, and Southern Michigan.

External Conflicts
The United States of America, which retained its name despite the move from states to territories, has lost two major wars in the past 50 years. The first was the Second Mexican-American war of the 2030s. The actual history is somewhat clouded concerning this war. The Mexican National Authority, MNA, came to dominate much of Central America in the mid 2020s by use of military force and economic sanctions. The MNA attempted to take control of Panama in an effort to choke international trade through the use of increased tariffs at the Panama Canal. The Panamanian government accepted the MNA’s proposal for the nation to join the Federation as a state, but the United States, and many of Europe’s powers, rejected the move. The resulting war was a catastrophe, as Mexico preemptively invaded the southern half of the US in an attempt to hold its major cities ransom for a peace treaty. The US was unable to respond to the attack, having massed its troops on the southern border of Panama. The treaty of San Antonio ended the conflict and reestablished the US Mexican border several hundred miles north of its previous position. Los Angeles, San Diego, and Tuscon are just a few cities now formally under Mexican authority, though rebellion in those areas is rife.

The second war on American Territory came 40 years later. The government of British Columbia, in Canada, voted unanimously secede from their country and join the United States as a new territory. The United States graciously accepted, as it had widely been known they valued the mineral riches of the neighboring mountains as well as the abundant fishing supplied through the city. American troops marched across the border to reinforce their new territory. Canada, in retaliation for the secession, sent troops to meet them and garnered international support. The US was expelled from NATO and the UN officially withdrew its headquarters, moving to Brussels, Belgium. The Canadian Coalition, with the cooperation of Russia, Italy, Spain and Germany, invaded. However, where the US thought Canada would try to retake Vancouver, they instead marched south to seize Seattle and choke off the supply lines to the troops up north. The US government was forced to pull troops from numerous international bases and recalled them to new posts along the Canadian Border. By the time the dust settled, America’s northern border had shifted south by nearly 80 miles. Seattle is held under the grip of marshal law. Vancouver was placed under lock-down and its politicians and city council members were executed for High Treason.

Cities of Importance: Pacific Territory
Monterey: After the loss of San Diego in the Second Mexican-American war, Monterey became the mainland headquarters for the US Navy. Population booms expanded the city to incoroporate every surrounding town and city on the bay, all the way up to Santa Cruz. Ford Ord has been reactivated as the primary military base for the western United States.
Oakhurst: A sleepy town at the turn of the century, Oakhurst has exploded as a new population center. With the advent of solar-powered light rail, Oakhurst became a hub for the Pacific Territory cargo heading over the mountains into Deseret and the Southwest Territory.
San Jose: After the bombings of San Francisco during the Second Mexican-American war and the shelling of Sacremento during the Northern Wars, San Jose has become the political center of the Pacific Territory. It is also home to an increasingly loud group of sectarian politicians bent on the secession of the Pacific Territory from the rest of the US. The population of the city swelled over the years to its present number, nearly 2.6 million residents.

Well, I hope you enjoy the information I’ve provided you with here. I’ll be continuing writing and pushing through the next few chapters. Once I’ve reached chapter 10 I’ll be posting another sneak peek. Until then, enjoy and leave some feedback. Cheers!

Scope’s War – Sneak Peek #1

Hey there and welcome to my first Sneak Peek of my new project, currently titled Scope’s War. These Sneak Peeks are going to be small bits of info or passages from the story and I’m going to reveal once a week as I work through the project. This book is a work in progress but has been sketched out as far as the story goes. The details are what I’m still ironing out so any feedback or suggestions, character ideas or locations, anything you have to add really is much appreciated. This week’s info consists of A) the title B) the fact that I plan for this to be a trilogy and C) the Mercenary Oath, which is on the first page of the story, before the beginning of chapter 1. I hope everyone will keep up to date on these and I look forward to sharing more with you as the book progresses.

The Mercenary Oath

I am a Mercenary.
I serve at the pleasure of my client.
I fight their enemies.
I shield their allies.

I am a Soldier of Fortune.
My loyalty may be bought.
My gun may be hired.
My oath may be purchased.

I am a Professional.
I will complete the contract.
I will uphold the bargain.
I will see the mission through to the end.

I swear this oath now to all.
I am a Mercenary and I fight to win.

Small Update 3/26

Hey There!

Well I’m trying to get back to my blog, since I’ve pretty well neglected it for the last month. If you read my last post, you’d have seen that my brother-in-law is in the hospital, recovering from complications from surgery. He is doing much better the last week and looks to be well on the road to recovery. While we go visit Peter on the weekends, our weeks are beginning to transition a bit back to their normal routine.

That of course includes writing for me. I’ve not had too much time to work on my writing but have notched another 2k words or so into my current project. I’m at about 12k total now and steadily working through Chapter 4. I’m very confident that this project is going to pan out to a full manuscript, despite the trouble I’ve had with previous projects at getting them completed. With most of my other writing, I’ve found I write myself into corners or decide halfway through that I dislike an initial part of the book and that throws off the rest of the writing further down the line. With my current project, I’ve elected to take each chapter and draft out an outline so that I have a general idea of where the chapter is going, who is featured in it, and what the main plot points are.

To finish off, I’ll leave you with just a small bit of info about my project: the book is being written as Young Adult, my first foray into the genre, and the protagonist is, gasp, a young man. Happy writings. Cheers!

Update – It’s been a while

Hi Everyone,

I’ve been a little remiss in putting up new blog posts, so sorry for that. My brother-in-law has been in the hospital for the last few weeks, first with a diaphragmatic hernia and then in critical condition in the ICU after going into septic shock.  The family has been staying with him in the hospital pretty much straight through this all, and my wife and I have been trying to be there as much as possible. Any positive thoughts or prayers are much appreciated in this trying time.

All that being said, I’ve been working quite steadily for the past few days on a new project. I’ve hammered out almost the first 3 chapters, nearly 9000 words so far in about six days. After all the stresses and worrying, I kind of found myself focusing more and more on writing to help handle the situation.  I’ve decided to keep my new book a secret, mostly. I find that when I talk about my writing with lots of people, or talk about schedules or when I hope to have stuff done, I get bogged down in the end product instead of focusing on the writing that needs to be done to get there.  So I’m just working along and planning the book out, one chapter at a time. As I’ve said on my facebook page, I’ll be doing a plot reveal when the first draft is finished and I’ve done a couple rounds of editing. Then it will be off to some others for editing (since my brain will most likely be much by then). I’m determined to write a little bit everyday and keep going to the project is finished. 

My only hint is that, unlike anything else I’ve written, this is a novel of Young Adult Fiction.

Cheers! 

Discussing Book Reviews

For today’s blog, since I’ve been out of it a bit lately, I’ve decided to do a little topical discussion. No, you don’t have to put it on your skin. In fact, what I want to talk about is book reviews, particularly a question that pops up quite often.

What should be considered a ‘good’ review score?

I’ve seen this discussion across the web in various author forums in which I participate. Mostly it seems to surface when books seen as particularly poorly written (by fellow authors in the writing community) receive excellent 5 star reviews across the board.  I’ve been thinking about this for quite some time, trying to get a grasp on how I review books as a reader and how I expect people to review my own work as a writer. Before I jump into anything major, here is a review of my recent short story collection, Across The Battlefield:

This is a very quick read. The author uses four scenarios we can relate to along with one dealing with a fictitious scenario. I did enjoy the concept Mr. Busch was pushing for; a glimpse into the men who fight on the front lines and the decisions and emotions they encounter during a battle.

One concept I did enjoy was how each battle was laid out and yes, I was thinking of other wars and battles in each story but was pleasantly surprised when I realized it was different era and place.

I was hoping for a little more insight and activity in each story.

It’s worth the $.99.

This was a 3/5 star review on Amazon for my book. My only other review was a 5 star, so I’m balanced nicely at 4 stars.

I saw the 3 stars when I logged in to check my books sales and my first thought was, ‘Hmm, I wonder why I got only three?’

Which got me to thinking, is three out of five really a bad review? The answer is an emphatic, no. While we, especially in the the USA have been conditioned to view a 3/5 as a 60% and thus a failing grade by educational standards, in reality 3/5 is a good review. Not bad (1/5), OK (2/5), great (4/5) or excellent (5/5). Just good. When I read though the view, I realized, ‘Hey, I totally understand why it’s only three.’ The reader enjoyed the collection but found the length a little paltry. You know what? He’s right, it is short, which is why I only sell it for $ .99.  As I read the review over, I finally realized that as a reader I tend to get away from objectivity when I write a review of a book I really like and that at the end of the day I rarely read work that I don’t want to give a 4 or 5 star, feeling like a 3 is cheating the writer. But as a writer, I value an honest opinion and, more than anything, a truly good review.

ATB Free Today Only!

Today only, you can get your copy of Across The Battlefield 100%, Grade-A Free!

Good enough sales pitch? Well, it does seem to be working. As of last night at about 11:30 pm when I last checked, my total sales were at 20. That’s not too bad for a .99 short story collection that has only been available for a month. As of five minutes ago, about 10:00 am, my sales have jumped to 66. Yep, I’ve increased sales (downloads) 200% overall in about 8 hours. It’s pretty neat and, even though I’m not making money from these sales, people are (hopefully) reading my work and when I release my next book they will have something to use as a reference to see if they want to buy it. Overall this is a really great sale and I’m hoping at least a few people will leave a review, since I only have one right now. If you haven’t picked up your copy, hop on over and grab one while they’re hot.

On the writing front, I’ve been steadily working on Sands of Eternity, once again. I’ve finally passed 40,000 words and am well on my way toward the first major battle scene, the siege of Arsuf. This is going to be a large undertaking but I want to finish what I started and have a really great, full-length novel to show for myself. I’ll post some more about it a little later when I’ve put some more time into it. If you’d like to get an idea of what I’m writing, I would suggest checking out 1632 by Eric Flint and Island in a Sea of Time by S. M. Stirling, two novels which heavily influenced my decision to write Sands of Eternity and two of my personal favorite books.

I’ll sign off for now, but keep watching for more on Sands of Eternity and Across the Battlefield in the coming weeks. Thank you once again for the support. Cheers and Happy Writings!

-Will

P.S. Happy Valentine’s Day

Flash Fiction, Feb. 5

Just dropping in with another short flash fiction I’ve written for IndiesUnlimited.  I’ve been making sure to stay up on them and have been making a collection of flash fiction from various competitions which I plan to publish at some point in the future.  I find I have a weakness for this type of writing. It is a really great way to get some thought on paper and just see where it takes you without being worried about how long it will be. These particular last few are also great exercises in word choice and flow. Only having 250 words to make a convincing story work is not an easy task and it teaches you to really weed out the superfluous part and just stick with the story. So here is my latest, entry, for everyone’s reading pleasure!

The Boy in the Ship

The boy listened to the swell of the surf upon the distant shore, trying to block out his fear and uncertainty of what was coming. The ship was rocking gently as it ghosted into the harbor. The boy peered through the gloom of the galley. It was dark, as it had been every day since he had entered the great, gaping belly of the wooden ship. The stench no longer impressed him, so long had it filled his nostrils.

The sharp call of a seagull caused him to start. It was an unfamiliar sound, for the strange birds did not exist in his homeland. He peered through a crack between the boards near where he sat, watching as the ship slid alongside the docks. He could see ropes being thrown down to those on the ground, who quickly fastened them to the huge logs planted in the water.

A long board suddenly appear just on the edge of the boy’s vision. It was lowered to touch the dock and two of the men who sailed the ship descended. He watched as the fat one handed the skinny one a piece of cloth. The men had marked symbols on it, though the boy had no idea what they meant. The two were confronted by another, very stern looking, man who waved at the ship and made an inquisitive face. The skinny man simply handed him the cloth and uttered the only word in their language the boy understood.

“Slaves.”