Tag: ebooks

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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.

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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.

Six Seconds 030111. 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. 

In Part 3, Me: Full Throttle, I’ll show you how I’m reaching out to new readers in new ways. You could do this yourself or even be part of my strategy, if you’re cool enough. Are you cool enough? Click here.

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The What’s Uncool Edition

Blame the media over two outrages you probably won’t believe. Annoying grammar police shoot three and The Undercover Man, Chapter 4 of Higher Than Jesus pours you some hot coffee.

My mistake: The link to the Moment of Clarity podcast is actually leecamp.net (not the link I gave in the podcast. Here’s the link to Lee Camp’s video with more about the true perpetrators of the assassination of MLK. To donate a tweet to Lee Camp, go here.

Check out our sponsor, Kit Foster at KitFosterDesigncom. Excellent graphic artist!

Check out the Fitbit by clicking the affiliate link in the right sidebar. Click donate to help with bandwidth and best of all, buy the books by Robert Chazz Chute from the “Shop” menu.

Thank you and thanks for listening!

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Podcast: Furious!

Definitely NSFW: Furious with the phone company and myself, I lose it. Also, Atheists vs Christians and the third chapter of Higher Than Jesus hits the fan.

Please check out our sponsor, Kit Foster of KitFosterDesign.com for your graphics needs.

Thanks for listening to the All That Chazz podcast. If you like it, please leave a happy review on iTunes.

Cheers!

~ Chazz

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NSFW: A fun little excerpt from my work-in-progress Hollywood Jesus

I’ve had trouble breaking through a plot problem with Hollywood Jesus, the third instalment of The Hit Man Series. This afternoon it came to me how to amp up the rush and now I’m plunging forward through the book again, writing madly.

One of the things I enjoy about my main character, Jesus Diaz, is that he’s such a smart ass. That leads to more jokes and fun dialogue amid the heart-wrenching carnage, sex and violence. Here’s a bit I wrote tonight:

“Who’s the client?” you asked your boss, friend and amateur Ving Rhames lookalike, Chillie Gillie.

Chill wouldn’t say. Three worry deep lines appeared on his forehead, so you knew the client was a friend.

“What’d Fitzwald do?”

“Maybe nothing. Right now, all we know for sure is he’s an asshole. This a search for evidence sort of deal. This is not a search and destroy mission, you dig?”

“I dig, Shaft.”

Chill pulls a puss. “Shut your mouth.” 

“What? Just haven’t heard anybody say ‘dig’ in a long time.”

 “I’m bringing it back. I’m also thinking of bringing back the word ‘groovy’.”

“Groovy. I can dig it.”

“There you go.”

~ Bigger Than Jesus by Robert Chazz Chute is #1. Higher Than Jesus is #2. Look for the next book in the series at the end of April. 

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Take Charge: The New Resolution Edition

New resolutions mean nothing without fresh resolve, every day. Here comes 2013, so happy new year, have a listen and buckle up!

Here are my commitments:

1. RE: My writing career: I’m using fellow author, Zombie God Armand Rosamilia, as my pacer. The goal is 10,000 words a week for me, too.

2. RE: My health. As a writer, I am sedentary. That will kill me if I don’t get off my ass. On my current trajectory, my first heart attack will hit in less than seven years and I’ll be dead in less than ten. That would be tragic because, aside from the fact that the universe collapses without The Magic That is Me, I’m way too young and pretty to die. I have a lot of books to write and not enough time to get them done on that shortened timeline. Therefore: I choose a new reality and daily exercise. I got a Fitbit and a juicer for Christmas.* Tally-freakin’-ho.

3. RE: Tasks to complete. I plan at least four more books in 2013. This is doable. It is a simple goal. It is not an easy goal. That’s okay. Mama didn’t make no wimps and I’m a genius, so what’s the problem besides acting unconsciously (i.e. sometimes acting pretty stupid)?

*Do you have similar goals for weight loss and exercise? A Fitbit will cost you about $100. Since it could save your life (I hope it saves mine), here’s the Fitbit link. For an alternative to the Fitbit, try Slimkicker.com or FitDay.com.

For more on the benefits of juicing and a healthier lifestyle, watch Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. For even more on juicing, go to Join the Reboot. Want even more than that to get on track? Vegucated and Hungry for Change are good movies to consider on Netflix (and those links will take you to their respective websites.) I’m not ready to go full Vegan — I’m keeping my egg whites — but for the next few months, I’m juicing to correct my weight and pre-hypertension so it doesn’t climb to full hypertension. (In Vegucated, you’ll note that participants dropped 20 points or more off their blood pressure after just six weeks as vegans.)

A key component I’m using for my particular approach to weight loss is incorporating bio-hacks from The Bulletproof Executive. Read, review and talk to your doctor if necessary. Not all hacks are appropriate for all individuals, depending on varied medical conditions. Given my condition, I’m taking a radical approach that may not be for you. However, I’m on stage this summer and I have to look awesome. (Oh, yeah…and there’s that little thing about wanting to live longer.) 

Take in the information. Think about what’s right for you. Design a plan. Write it out. Report to somebody to keep you honest. Stick to it even when you don’t feel like it. This can apply to getting things done, balancing your check book or organizing your office. Whatever you’re challenge, you have choices to make. And let’s not kid ourselves: We’re conscious adults. Mostly, we already know what the right choices are. Find the tools that will help you with your goals and make those choices. 

If it’s diet you’re changing, think more about all you can add in. That will displace what you’re subtracting from your lifestyle. For instance, you can have all the vegetables, homemade vegetable soup and vegetable juices you want and you’ll fill up with low calories, high nutritional content. The more green leafy and cruciferous stuff, the better.

We can change. If you get some energy from the podcast, come back to it and remember why you made this commitment to improve your life. Seek support from your circle of friends and fellow travellers. This is the Internet. Whatever your challenge, there’s someone out there who shares it. For instance, if you don’t have support locally, allies can be found everywhere. Consider Weight Watchers or start with podcasts, like Dave Jackson’s Logical Weight Loss. I’ll be checking in, too. Subscribe to my newsletter and I’ll let you know my progress in coming months.

This podcast is sponsored by the great Kit Foster of KitFosterDesign.com.

Music for this podcast:  

Mechanolith Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Pop Goes the Weasel Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

MTA Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Mistake the Getaway #2 Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)

Clips on today’s show were from The Matrix, FDR, President Obama singing Al Green, Bush the Junior, Joe Rogan, Wikileaks recording “Collateral Murder”, Robocop, Sly Stallone’s speech to his son in Rocky Balboa (2006), Chevy Chase in Caddyshack, Howard Beal’s speech in Network, Tom Cruise and Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men, MLK (x2), Pat Morita as Mr. Miyago to Ralph Macchio as Daniel-san in The Karate Kid. Obama pops up again, too.

To help with the bandwidth for the show, hit the tip jar/donate button to the right, buy some books or say hello via the Speakpipe prompt at the top right. Thanks for listening!