This week, I’m happy to share that Ellen (the writer-half of PixelTwister Studio) and I have come up with an amazing script. It’s meant to tease out the idea behind the book, so it shares part of the you find a body and a revolver with a “pick me up” note opening hook, but it’s also broad enough to get the entire concept across in only a minute or two. If you haven’t read the book/don’t know what I’m talking about, you can check out the first chapter for free using the amazon “look inside” function on the MURDERED product page.
The gist goes something like this:
You’re in Brazil for Carnival when you turn down the wrong alley on the wrong night…”
Meanwhile, Jeremy (the artist-half of PixelTwister) has been busy building the world of the trailer. As part of that, he sent me a sneak peek (which I’m also happy to share with you!) of the Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer) statue that watches over the iconic Rio de Janeiro skyline.
Without further ado:
Boom! Annnnd that’s now my desktop background.
Sorry to tease you all, but I had to share my excitement. The trailer is coming soon! So don’t forget to subscribe 😉
“Have a thick skin.” If you’re a writer, whether you’re a hobbyist or a pro, you’re probably given this piece of advice dozens of times throughout your creative lifetime. The gist of the sentiment is: “Don’t take criticism too personally.” And while this is a lovely aphorism, it’s also easier said than done.
To follow the metaphor, having a thick skin makes my professional persona armored like an elephant or a rhinoceros. But here’s the thing–those noble beasts are born thick-skinned, whereas a creative person is nearly always the opposite.
We wouldn’t need a battlecry to “toughen up” if it came naturally. We’re told to desensitize ourselves to criticism because it’s the opposite of our instinctual reaction. When someone judges a writer’s work harshly, this tends to feel like a judgement of the author on a personal level. How can it not? You pour yourself onto the page, whether it be genre writing or memoir, and dedicate months or years to perfecting the product.
Okay, so what inspired this newest bout of self-reflection (and/or pity)? A negative review, of course.
A thoughtful, honest, and thorough skewering of MURDERED appeared on Amazon yesterday in the form of a 3-star review and it’s been eating at me (read the review here). And before you say, “3-stars isn’t negative,” allow me to direct your attention here:
Exhibit A: See the titles? “Most Helpful Critical Review.” The defense rests its case.
While the reviewer has some lovely things to say about the book and its author (he said in third-person), there’s quite a bit in there that I can only describe as “scathing.”
But I digress. The point of this blog post is for me to expand on how it is that I’m able to have a thick skin. How I “take a licking and keep on ticking.” Sure, I allow myself a moment of self-pity (and by “allow” I mean I accept the fact that I will experience these emotions and resign myself to it). But then I move on. What’s my secret?
My thick skin doesn’t come naturally, it’s formed from callouses.
That is to say, it’s built up as a defense against injury and assault. Each affront, no matter how small, toughens me up. Now, I’m able to look past the surface review and ask myself, “Okay, what did the reviewer really not like?”
The reviewer in my personal example compares MURDERED to a Rubik’s Cube, in a negative way. Their impression is that the book is nothing more than a simple curiosity; fun for a few minutes until the novelty wears off. And yet when I was writing the book, I actually told several friends I felt like I was creating a “literary Rubik’s Cube!” I naturally meant this as a positive–as a challenge. As a game that is fun to pick up and play with from time to time, but actually difficult and time-consuming to solve in full.
Not everyone loves a Rubik’s Cube. Then again, there are whole clubs and competitions formed by those who do. Not everyone will love my books, and some of those people will review them, but there are others who enjoy what I do and I’ll keep writing for that audience. The negative reviews still sting, but with my callouses I’m able to move past them more quickly.
Soon, I’ll be charging forward and there’ll be no stopping me.
Starting now, MURDERED is on a Kindle Countdown Deal — so it’s $0.99 today, up to $1.99 on Friday, $2.99 on Sunday, before going back up to the original price of $3.99 next Monday.
On Sale 21-27 April 2014, only on Amazon.
3 Unique Storylines. Over 50 Possible Endings. Just one question… Could YOU Solve a Murder?
MURDERED is a mystery novel unlike any other — YOU are the main character. Follow clues, interrogate suspects, and piece together the puzzle before the killer gets away! It’s up to you to solve the case in this action-packed, dark and humorous thriller. Each link represents a choice, and the story evolves based on your decisions.
You’re in a dark alley, a lost tourist in Brazil, when you stumble across a woman’s body and a revolver atop a grisly note which reads, “PICK ME UP.” That’s when you realize you’re not alone….
What starts as an exotic vacation ends up as the opportunity of a lifetime when you inadvertently witness a man fleeing the scene of a murder. Work side-by-side with US Diplomatic Security agents (DSS) and Brazilian Police Officers inside the lawless slums of Rio de Janeiro — but choose wisely, no one is who they truly seem to be.
Get MURDERED!
Test your detective skills in the shantytowns of Rio de Janeiro’s favelas.
★★★★★ “I grew up with Choose Your own Adventure Novels, and I love how the Click Your Poison books take the conceit into the digital age. …a gripping mystery packed with action set against an exotic Brazilian backdrop. This is a novel that you control.” — William Massa, Hollywood screenwriter and Amazon bestselling author of Fear the Light: Who Murdered Dracula?
★★★★★ “MURDERED…solid writing, humor, mystery, thrills and…the opportunity to investigate and solve a murder…” — Zach Tyo, reviewer, indiebookreviewer.blogspot.com
If you’ve read the book, now would be a great time to leave a review on amazon or to share your thoughts on goodreads. Please tell your friends about the sale and don’t forget to subscribe to the blog (toolbar on left) for future sales and specials!
Instantly recognizable, right? Those are the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books, one of the original gamebook series.
For Click Your Poison, several readers have suggested that my covers should have a similar “connected” look. Or, at the very least, something on the cover that lets you know it’s “Interactive Fiction” or a “Text-based Adventure.”
I must say, it makes sense. I love my covers for INFECTED and MURDERED, but they don’t really look connected to one another in any way. I could still keep the images, but maybe in a different design scheme.
One fan suggested a design reference to the old InfoCom games, a callback to when all video games were essentially text-based adventures. The original company is defunct, but they certainly had that “connected” feel. And there it is, all the info you need, right on the cover.
I think a call-back to old games could work pretty well. Maybe not something exactly like this, but a “cartridge” design might not be a bad look for a “gamebook.”
So, what do you think? Whether you’re a casual reader or a student of design, I’d love to get your thoughts!
One of the many promo pics I made to entice readers.
January 10th Today starts the final day of my free promotion, and it is with some apprehension that I begin. I’ve read that the “magic number” is 20k downloads. If you get less than that, your promotion was not worth it. You also need to make it into the Top 20 free books (overall) on Amazon’s best sellers list. Bearing those stats in mind, let’s see how we’ll start off the day:
NOTE: CLICK ALL IMAGES TO ENLARGE
5640 Downloads as of 0600, January 10th.No change (save for category updates).
Woof. No update in the ranking and a measly 300 downloads overnight. Fear is sinking in… Am I doing this for nothing? Have I spent all this money advertising only to fail? But I can’t think that way. Today is my BookBub day, they’re supposed to be the best of the best, and that announcement hasn’t gone out yet. Holding out faith for “BookBub the Almighty” I’m still worried. I’m listed in the horror category which is one of their smaller lists. As you can see in the pricing chart below, the average downloads for a free horror book are 6,700 with a historical maximum of 10k over the entire promotion.
I really need to get MURDERED on a promotion… possibly to coincide with the launch of book 3?
Seeing as how I’m only using a single day of BookBub, I’m thinking I’ll be lucky to get 6k. Which means <12k downloads. Which means… failure. Well, at this point what’s done is done. Best to let it play out and hope for the best (along with continued plugs on social media). Yesterday’s lesson was to be patient and not to panic, so I’ll try to keep that in mind as the day progresses.
Here’s a mid-day update, after BookBub has gone out:
14090 Downloads as of 1400, January 10th.Holy Crepe! Look at those numbers…
Whoa! Now that the BookBub announcement has gone out, the downloads are gushing forth like spray from a firehose. I can literally refresh the page every few seconds and see more and more downloads. #26 overall! Maybe I’ll make the Top 20 before the day is through?
LESSON LEARNED: BookBub rocks. Until something changes, don’t do a free book promotion without them. This is my honest advice.
I'm currently giving out copies of INFECTED at a rate of 3k every 2 hours. Hahhahaha, what? This is insane. #enjoytheride#cloudnine
With numbers like this, I’m very very hopeful again. Though I’ll only be “On top of the world!” for a fleeting instant, it’s nice to bask in that accomplishment. When you do your own promotion, don’t forget to do so as well.
LESSON LEARNED: Enjoy yourself.
Topping the combined SciFi & Fantasy chart as of 1800.Best in horror as of 1800.
Everything’s going my way! This is amazing! I’m climbing the chart, I’m absolutely killing it, I —- just got a 1-start review. What? Ugh. Hours before my promo ends, someone shows up and says “Do not buy.”
Surprise! Kinda changes the experience, doesn’t it?
LESSON LEARNED: Shrug off the haters. As much as it sucks getting negative reviews or bad press (someone also posted in the comments of an INFECTED blog review how much they hated it…), if you manage to give out 20k copies, you’re bound to have some readers that don’t like what you’ve done. There’s no pleasing everyone.
Okay, time for one last check as the promo ends…
Over 20k downloads!Agh! So close…
The best INFECTED was rated during the promotion was #22 Free in Kindle Store, so I didn’t quite make the Top 20, but I did (barely) make 20k downloads. Will it be enough? Time will tell…
January 9th Good morning, again! Today Book Blast is set to go out and, with (fingers’ crossed) the continued buzz from yesterday’s promotion, this should make for an exciting day. I don’t know about you, but I could hardly sleep a wink. Whattdya say we see how much action happened overnight?
NOTE: CLICK ALL IMAGES TO ENLARGE
2686 Downloads as of 0600, January 9th.Woo-hoo! Made it into the coveted Top 100.
Two interesting points of order based on these stats. First, is that I’m still listed in Literature & Fiction > Action & Adventure (an old category) as well as Science Fiction > Post-Apocalyptic (new category). Could this be because my update is still “processing”? I’m not sure. I’ll have to watch carefully as this develops. Second, even though my rank has surpassed the Top 100 free books in the kindle store, I only gave away 450 copies over the course of the entire night. Which leads to…
LESSON LEARNED: Be patient/don’t panic. Within the first two hours of the day, my rank got worse and shot up to #99. If this is a race to #1, that means I’m not doing well… or does it? Amazon’s best seller ranking is elastically flexible and doesn’t necessarily correspond to current downloads. Maybe someone else’s rank simply processed before mine? I could just need some time to catch up. Tough to say. Amazon keeps their ranking algorithm a closely-guarded secret, but it pays to go with the flow. Just keep doing what you know you should be doing, and let the ranking system do its thing.
Here’s a mid-day update, after Book Blast has gone out:
4113 Downloads as of 1400, January 9th.Back to “increasing!” Slow and steady wins the race today.
Interesting to note that the categories are still switching. Could this be a good thing? It’s putting me on several different categories throughout the day (the maximum allowed is two), so I can’t see how it would hurt… Hmm. But the main point is that it’s getting better. From all I’ve heard and read, Book Bub is the behemoth service that’ll push any promotion over the edge. So if I can just keep climbing the charts, no matter how slowly, I should be in for a treat tomorrow.
The snowball is your book promotion. The more people you get to help push it along, the bigger it’ll get until it eventually starts feeding itself.
The afternoon was spent doing more promoting and marketing, of course, which leads to another…
LESSON LEARNED: Set up everything beforehand. I started contacting book sites a month out, but I found a great list of resources I was planning to contact during the promotion. Big mistake. Just going through with everything I’d had planned, to include continued social media marketing, took up all my time. You should have everything ready to go before you promotion starts, so the most work you have to do during the event involves the copy/paste function.
It’s getting late. Let’s do one last look at the stats before bed:
5358 Downloads as of 2200, January 9th.Still increasing and — BONUS — now it’s topping 3 categories!
It’s getting significantly more difficult for INFECTED to climb the ranks, but at least it still is. And with tomorrow set to be my “anchor day” I’m hopeful. You might also notice 3 more sales of MURDERED in 24 hours. Not exactly the boost I was hoping for, but it’s still early (and I’m thankful for each sale I get). Time to try and sleep and prepare for the exciting conclusion tomorrow…
What did this do to you? Tell me. And remember, this is for posterity so be honest. How do you feel?” — Count Rugen, The Princess Bride
January 7th
With everything set up to go the night before, one last stat-check. Below you can see my pre-giveaway sales numbers and the ranking for INFECTED. In the spirit of honesty, I’m sharing my less than stellar numbers. Hopefully that means you won’t mind my bragging after the promotion, right?!
NOTE: CLICK ALL IMAGES TO ENLARGE
Sales numbers as of 1730, January 7th.
Yowza! Impressive, right? [/sarcasm_font]INFECTED has been oddly steady over the past year, garnering almost exactly 2 sales per day (+/- 1). Usually, it’ll jump to somewhere in the mid #40k rankings, then return to the #100k block until the next day’s sales. MURDERED, as you can see, is still building momentum. Hopefully, that should be one of the side-effects of this promotion. INFECTED has never gone lower (higher?) than #19k in the kindle store, while MURDERED made it to mid #12k. Goal is to crush those records in the coming days. Well, time for bed!
January 8th Good morning! With Kindle Fire Department set to announce me today, as well as a whole slew of free resources (most of them ask for a giveaway window and there’s no garauntee that they will feature your book, let alone when they’ll do it. It is a free service, after all. I’ll assess which ones worked and which didn’t in my final thoughts), we’re ready to kick off the free promotion. Let’s check the overnight stats:
82 Downloads as of 0600, January 8th.Numbers are already higher than paid numbers, not that this means anything.
This is before any site announced the giveaway, as far as I know. Interesting that one person bought the book before it went on sale… Thanks, whoever you are! The goal of the promotion is to get your rank as high as possible — it’s a race to #1. If you can make it into the top #20 or #10, then people will start downloading your book just from browsing the top free ebooks on amazon, thus increasing the snowball effect.
In addition to the websites listed on my previous post, it’s also important to do your own marketing. As such, I blogged about the giveaway, tweeted the heck out of it (including a link in my “welcome DM” on @clickyourpoison), and created an event on goodreads and on facebook:
An event is a great tool because it sends a notification to those invited (rather than risking being lost in the feed). Be careful not to hound your friends too much though…
Let’s check the mid-day numbers, after the promotion has been announced:
909 Downloads as of 1400, January 8th.BOOM! Big jump. Off to a great start.
Okay, so from what I’ve researched, these are awesome numbers. Especially for an author with a small fan-base who has never done anything like this before. Which leads us to the first lesson learned. Yup, I’ve already made a mistake.
LESSON LEARNED: Categories. See how I’m already #6 in Horror > Occult? That’s actually not a good thing this early into the promotion. I originally chose this category as “low-hanging fruit” because it’s easy to climb the chart (there aren’t too many books competing for space). Which is a good thing when you’re trying to keep your paid ranking high, but when you’re doing a free promotion, you should shoot the moon. So, I looked up the bestselling books most similar to mine and mirrored their categories. I settled on Science Fiction > Post-Apocalyptic and Horror > United States. I called Amazon customer support to get them to quickly change my categories, so hopefully within 24 hours the rankings will be fixed. Lesson Learned? Update your “shoot the moon” categories before your promotion.
Okay, took a hike just to get away from the craziness, then spent the late afternoon/evening posting on facebook groups and tweeting. I had joined several “zombie fan” groups on facebook in the weeks prior, and now used the opportunity to spread the word. When you’re offering something free, most people don’t mind.
Let’s check the numbers once more before bed, shall we? Okay!
2236 Downloads as of 2200, January 8th.Already updated the categories, nice!
In addition to all the free downloads, that’s also 4 sales of MURDERED in 24 hours. Great first day, see you tomorrow!
Congratulations to Eddie, the first reader to successfully solve the case in MURDERED!
The Amateur Detective Contest is now “Case Closed” but if you haven’t solved it yet, don’t worry. This book was meant to be lingered over and enjoyed. Take the time to smell the poisonous jungle flowers. There’s a lot more to the story than simply winning! Keep trying, and challenge your friends. See who’s got what it takes.
The newest Click Your Poison book, MURDERED, is available now! Check it out on Amazon.
Our Amateur Detective Contest also just kicked off, and the first one to solve the case wins, so jump on in.
3 Unique Storylines. Over 50 Possible Endings. Just one question… Could YOU Solve a Murder?
MURDERED is a mystery novel unlike any other — YOU are the main character. Follow clues, interrogate suspects, and piece together the puzzle before the killer gets away! It’s up to you to solve the case in this action-packed, dark and humorous thriller. Each link represents a choice, and the story evolves based on your decisions.
You’re in a dark alley, a lost tourist in Brazil, when you stumble across a woman’s body and a revolver atop a grisly note which reads, “PICK ME UP.” That’s when you realize you’re not alone….
What starts as an exotic vacation ends up as the opportunity of a lifetime when you inadvertently witness a man fleeing the scene of a murder. Work side-by-side with US Diplomatic Security agents (DSS) and Brazilian Police Officers inside the lawless slums of Rio de Janeiro — but choose wisely, no one is who they truly seem to be.
Ever read a whodunit where you outwitted the main character? Ever watched a murder mystery where you outfoxed the gumshoe? Grab your pipe and magnifying glass, super sleuth, it’s time to test your powers of deduction in Click Your Poison’s Amateur Detective Contest!
How does it work? MURDERED is a murder mystery unlike any other, where YOU are the main character and must solve the crime by making choices. To see what I mean, try out a sample here.
The Kindle edition of MURDERED released on Amazon on Thursday, 5 December 2013. That’s when the contest starts. One grandprize winner will receive the *first ever* signed paperback copy (the paperback release date is 12 December 2013), annotated as such and congratulating you on your prowess as a detective. You’ll also receive an autographed copy of INFECTED or a $25 amazon gift certificate (your choice) AND a collectible INFECTED wine glass (to toast to your success). That’s over $50 in prizes!
Oooh, sparkly!
How do I win? The contest is simple. Once the ebook is released, the first reader to email me the correct identity of the story’s villain (along with your proof) wins the grand prize. That’s it! It’s a race against time to piece together the clues.
PS — You MUST email me the via the contact form. If you publicly spoil the story, you’re disqualified. Also, you’ll make me sad.
Good morning, again! Today Book Blast is set to go out and, with (fingers’ crossed) the continued buzz from yesterday’s promotion, this should make for an exciting day. I don’t know about you, but I could hardly sleep a wink. Whattdya say we see how much action happened overnight?
Good morning! With Kindle Fire Department set to announce me today, as well as a whole slew of free resources (most of them ask for a giveaway window and there’s no garauntee that they will feature your book, let alone when they’ll do it. It is a free service, after all. I’ll assess which ones worked and which didn’t in my final thoughts), we’re ready to kick off the free promotion. Let’s check the overnight stats:
Author James Schannep 