Meet me for a night of readings, hilarity and maybe even something useful
Podcast: Get Shorty
Jesus is trapped in the back of the God Eats Diner. He’s just killed two people and feels kind of bad about it. Worse, he just realized he’s been working for a really bad guy. Oh, and did I mention the back door is guarded by the guy he almost beat to death and there’s no way out because the diner is on fire? Facing a fiery death, my funny, loveable and luckless hit man has a few last thoughts to share. He also has some tough choices about how to die. Coming to Chicago was a mistake.
About the title: I love Elmore Leonard, but today’s author reading is from Higher Than Jesus. The chapter is called “Get Shorty”. Except for the last two chapters, all the chapter titles in Higher Than Jesus are from old movies. I’m a big noir and neo-noir film buff, so that’s why.
Our sponsor is the incredible graphic designer: Kit Foster of KitFosterDesign.com. Check out his site, his awesome professional portfolio and his very reasonable prices.
Check out my interviews with cool people on the Cool People Podcast at CoolPeoplePodcast.com. (Next guest, Hugh Howey!)
Buy, read, love, and review This Plague of Days and learn more about the horror serial at www.ThisPlagueOfDays.com.
To support the podcasts, buy the books or hit the handy donate buttons at AllThatChazz.com or CoolPeoplePodcast.com. If that doesn’t work with your budget, please leave a happy review on iTunes to spread the word. Thank you!
~ Chazz
Podcast: In the Line of Fire
In this episode, a review of World War Z attacks right after the quick and exciting new announcement: This Plague of Days by Robert Chazz Chute is launched! Then, “In the Line of Fire”, a new chapter reading of Higher Than Jesus (complete with sound effects!)
In the last instalment, Jesus Diaz was fresh from a coital conquest of the boss’s daughter. Then he got set up for murder. Poor Jesus! He’s so clever and loveable, yet such a luckless assassin. Pray for him. It’s going to get a lot worse for him before it gets better.
This podcast is sponsored by Kit Foster of KitFosterDesign.com.
If you like the podcast, please review it on iTunes. If you love it, please donate at the pretty yellow button in the right sidebar at AllThatChazz.com or CoolPeoplePodcast.com to help with the bandwidth charges. Thank you very much!
Best? Go buy, read, love and review all the books cha-cha-cha!
Thanks for listening!
~ Chazz
Heh. Since they asked. Weirds me out to do this but here you go.
This Plague of Days, Episode 1 by Robert Chazz Chute
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I’m torn between GR asking for a review and the awkward fact that I wrote it. For what I think? This story is two books in one that gets off to a rollicking start. It’s pacing is odd because it juxtaposes two groups on a collision course that are far apart: a teen on the autism spectrum in America’s heartland dealing with a world flu pandemic and a terrorist releasing a new strain of that virus in London. In America, they’re dealing with civilization grinding to a halt. In London, chaos is unleashed when the rabies-like virus turns the infected into cannibals. The characters in the hero’s family and the boy’s obsession with English dictionaries and Latin phrases are a special treat.
According to the author.
Ahem. See? Awkward.
(It’s available in serial episodes or as a full season (like a TV show). Three seasons are planned so far. The second season releases this fall.)
S I X S E C O N D S
I wrote a book about how to use the Vine App!
To make better vines (quick videos), go viral and, get creative and spread your word, read this book about Vine.
NEW UPDATES on my blog: OnlySixSeconds.
More Fury: The Hollow Man Edition
It’s episode #73 and Bradley Manning finally gets to talk. Not to me but to the world, and that’s a good thing (finally!) Chazz is down, furious and off the deep end. This podcast includes recommendations for better podcasts, self-loathing, and whining about taxes. Chazz also gets to read a couple of his favorite chapters from Higher Than Jesus. (Also, Jesus unofficially forgives him.) Chazz also makes time to rail against haters and discovers he’s too sensitive to understand how sensitive he is.
Check out the links to books by Robert Chazz Chute under “Shop” at AllThatChazz.com. Books include:
Bigger Than Jesus
Higher Than Jesus
Self-help for Stoners
Six Seconds, How to Build Your Business with the Vine App
Crack the Indie Author Code
Write Your Books: Aspire to Inspire
Sex, Death & Mind Control
Murders Among Dead Trees
If you like the books, please leave a happy review wherever you buy books.
Music today is Mistake the Getaway by Kevin MacLeod of Incompetech.com.
Web banners, podcast art and book covers by our sponsor, Kit Foster of KitFosterDesign.com.
Recommended podcasts: The Joe Rogan Experience, FAIR, Democracy Now, Best of the Left, The Young Turks, The David Feldman Show, The Jimmy Dore Show and Peter B. Collin News & Comment.
Better people than Chazz: Scott SIgler.
Thanks for listening! If you like the podcast, please leave a happy review. If you can’t stand me but you like cool people, check out the Cool People Podcast at CoolPeoplePodcast.com.
Throttling You: And some of this isn’t very nice
Find Part 1 of this post, Amazon Throttled, on ChazzWrites.com.
Skip to Part 3: Me, Full Throttle for another answer for finding readers.
Time to wrestle and tell the dirty truth.
What else can you do to find readers for your books and give them the best chance in the Marketplace of Awesomeness? And what sucks? Here’s my take:
1. Are blog tours really doing it for you? Are blog readers converting to book readers? They should…but I don’t think they do nearly as much as we hope. If they did, I’d have certainly sold more books by now. Blog tours can work, but it takes a lot of work to provide unique content to each blog. Do that if you’re going to tour and hit the largest blogs first. (Also, once it’s posted to one blog, don’t repost it on your blog. Bad SEO.)
2. We complain readers focus too much on Free and reap the benefits without commitment. Oddly, we’re hoping to win over the world without paying a dime. We don’t have advertising budgets. It’s time to get real and set a budget and pay for help selling your books. Yes, we all want it to happen organically without extra work or money. We all just want to write. That’s not the way to bet. Grow up, stop wishing and spend money to make money.
3. Don’t do another author interview on yet another small blog unless you’re going to make it different and/or funny. Go for funny because those interviews all sound the same and yes, I know, we all drink coffee. I win for most caffeinated. What else you got? I’d rather hear about your choice of lingerie than endure another answer to the question: “How did you start writing and where do you get your ideas?”
4. Don’t do another blog post about how “content is king.” It’s either self-evident or it doesn’t really mean anything. I need more meat than that to click the buy button on your next marketing book.
5. Don’t ask me to read another interview with one of your characters. I might be interested in that, but only after I’ve already read your book, not before. I’d love to know what happens to the main character in Fight Club after the book hits “The End”. However, before I knew what that book was, he’s just be another guy struggling with macho bullshit issues and a sleep disorder.
6. Will you please just take my advice and get Kit Foster to help you with your book cover? Get a graphic designer to help you. Do not do this yourself. Don’t even do it yourself if you’re a graphic designer. Please! Sweet baby Jesus, I’m begging you! Help me help Kit help you! Great book covers do not suck. Bad book covers hurt you. We all judge books by their covers.
7. Revamp your website. Get a custom banner. (Kit does those, too. Look at the top of this page.) Also: White field, black type, no exceptions. Your pretty pastels and all those flowery serifs are repelling me from your site and making me squint so, perhaps unfairly, your book doesn’t get a shot.
8. Be bolder with your next book. Come up with a new angle. There are no truly original stories, but you have to find something fresh to sell us. Have you read a single description of a romance book that doesn’t sound like hundreds of other romance books? Do something different and experimental. Whatever you do: Stand up and stand out! Start thinking audiobooks, for instance. (But it’s still way too early to bother with setting up an app for your book. People aren’t using the medium that way in any numbers.)
9. Work harder with your editorial team. Expand your beta reader bunch. Make it cleaner. Don’t wait for perfection, but excellence will do nicely.
10. We write to be read. Shyness is not helping you. Do something to promote your books every day. Do not whine that this is necessary. If you aren’t going to promote, you may as well write for your desk drawer. That’s okay, if that’s what you want. (I sincerely doubt that’s what you want.) And stop tweeting book links without imagination.
11. Use video more. We are visual creatures, so use YouTube more on your website or try Vine. If they’re quick, video blogs are interesting. (WordPress allows you to do audio blogs pretty easily, too.) Reach people in new ways. Buy Six Seconds, The Unauthorized Guide to How to Build Your Business with the Vine App by Robert Chazz Chute. (I told you it didn’t pay to be shy.) The Vine app is an example of a new way to reach new readers. It’s video Twitter and the time to jump in early is slipping away. Join now.