Viral video for the Hidden Masters novel

About two or three years ago I decided I wanted to create a viral video to promote The Hidden Masters and the Unspeakable Evil. The original plan was to take a scene from the story and make a short film. Ideally the scene selected should show something of the nature of the story, its humour, how the magic works, how it's not bloody Harry Potter with sparks coming out of wands. All that stuff.

Well making a live action film soon proved impractical so I decided on an animation. I built a 3D model of a Victorian back alley so I could use it as a virtual film set by taking shots from different angles. Google SketchUp proved pretty easy to learn and I soon had all the background images. Next thing I spent a summer trying to learn Flash animation which proved beyond me so I gave that up as a bad job. (Oh yes, in the mean time I actually had a job for part of this time so that took it's toll on progress.) Next thing I had to learn Photoshop to paint the sky, delete all the little construction artefacts, joins in wall panels, etc. That took a year on and off including a twelve week evening class.

reefer

Finally, around Yule 2011, I had all the backgrounds and was ready to start drawing the figures. (The final plan was not to have them move or to bother with dialogue so speech bubbles were the obvious way ahead.) I wanted the figures to wear the specific clothes that they wear in the book; a flying jacket and a sailors reefer coat. The web was the obvious place to find the images but I had a stroke of luck that I found a couple of TV programmes where the actors wore the coats I wanted to feature. So I ended up with stills from TV and filled in the gaps with photos from other sources where they didn't include the angles I wanted. Of course at this time I realised that using faces of specific people for each character meant that I could find the expressions I wanted and trace them rather than drawing them from scratch. I'm really not sure where I stand on copyright having traced photos so I'm not saying who they are but if you want to Facebook me privately I might be prepared to confirm or deny a guess but no more than that. Hopefully the faces are changed enough to disguise who they are.

Anyway, it took a year to draw the figures ending just about Yule 2012. Then someone suggested that I needed a soundtrack. I looked into music but it was all too challenging to find something of the right length and tone. However, I've got a sound editing suite that I bought for preparing music for parties so that seemed the obvious choice. The sound of raindrops (unrealistically loud but you can't really hear light rain), cat noises and lightning were all easy to find and it was a matter of an evening or so to come up with the sound track.

fate

So here it is, three years in the making, almost as long as it took to write the book that's it's intended to promote. However, since my first ever book (non fiction back in 1989) described the idea of the information virus I might have accidentally invented viral marketing before the technology existed to make it possible. Was fate waiting for me to make the viral video before I could have my big break? You decide. Here's the video. You might need to enlarge it to full screen to read the captions.

Hidden Masters on the move again

After a move away from self publishing early last year my books haven't been available in print for nearly a year and a half. The Hidden Masters and the Unspeakable Evil came out in eBook form at the end of 2011 but I've realised since that readers really do still prefer paper books.

So I'm now happy to say that my first novel The Hidden Masters and the Unspeakable Evil has just gone to the publisher this week. It bounced back once for some changes but hopefully that should be it for any more changes. For those of you who have read the first edition the new paperback edition is taken from the eBook that had tighter editing but this new version includes an extra joke. That's a brand new joke that wasn't in the first or second editions. Let me know if you can spot it but don't get too excited now.

In the mean time I've done some work on the second Hidden Masters novel (tentatively titled The Hidden Masters and the Techno Knights, set on the south Wales borders) and I'm really keen to get back to it. It's currently on chapter four or six depending on how I chop it up. It features a mad religious cult, a geek with a grudge and bad hair and hopefully some Morris Men with violent tendencies. As soon as I clear the other projects it's full steam ahead.

In the mean time here's the link to the eBook:

Here's the You Tube promo video

The Hidden Masters and The Unspeakable Evil available worldwide

This just a quick update that The Hidden Masters and the Unspeakable Evil has now gone into the Smashwords premium catalogue which means that it will be available on the major retailers' web sites worldwide. The Smashwords web site says this:

Kindle (.mobi for Kindle devices and Kindle apps)	Download
Epub (Apple iPad/iBooks, Nook, Sony Reader, Kobo, and most e-reading apps including Stanza, Aldiko, Adobe Digital Editions, others)	Download
LRF (Use only for older model Sony Readers that don't support .epub)	Download

They say the catalogue ships at the end of the week but I don't know how long it takes for the files to appear on the relevant web sites. If anybody sees the book on any of these sites I'd be interested to hear about it.

One final note although Smashwords sell books formatted for the Kindle they don't actually distribute to Amazon yet. Apparently that may be on the way soon. I'm told it's something to do with them having an ability to upload the files to Amazon so it's a technical matter. Until that is sorted out Kindle readers can buy the Kindle version of the Hidden Masters from other sellers and direct from Smashwords themselves.

The Hidden Masters and The Unspeakable Evil out in eBook format

Today I am available to read as an ebook.

The Hidden Masters and the Unspeakable Evil is now on Smashwords.com


It's just a first step as the book needs to be approved for formatting before it gets into the Premium Catalogue and then onto the various retailer's web sites. That process might take a couple of weeks.

Keep watching.

New dialogue for Hidden Masters - Chapter 1

The old Chapter 1 was a bit narrative heavy so I came to the conclusion that it needed some dialogue to perk it up. The trouble is the opening scene was a single character getting ready for his friends to arrive for the esbat. However the saving grace was a reported phone call that he later describes. So this is what I've added.

"Hello?"
"…"
"Oh hi Geoff, how's things?"
"… …"
"Uh huh."
"… … … … …"
"Uh huh."
"… … …"
"Uh huh."
"… … … … … … …"
"Really?"
"…"
"Good grief!"
"… … … … …"
"Uh huh."
"… … …"
"Your model village?"
"… … … … …"
"Uh huh."
"… … … … … … …"
"Casinos?"
"… … …"
"Cowboys?"
"… … … … …"
"Uh huh."
"… … …"
"Vegas?"
"… … …"
"Blackpool!"
"… … … … …"
"Uh huh."
"… … … … …"
"Indians? What, with war paint and all that?"
"… … … … …"
"Uh huh."
"… … … … …"
"Chain Mart! You mean the little everything-shop where you buy your beer?"
"… … … … …"
"Uh huh."
"… … …"
"Uh huh."
"… … … … …"
"Uh huh."
"…"
"… …"
"… … …"
"… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …"
"Are you stoned?"

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It's currently available on Kindle and in paperback (check the links in the sidebar). Here's the You Tube promo video.

Building virtual Blackpool

Click on the image to see the (lack of) detail

Using the 3D model of the Victorian alleyway, created for the animation, I'm trying to create some art for the book cover for the second edition of The Hidden Masters and the Unspeakable Evil. Unfortunately copying and pasting something like 1000 houses, each individually defined right down to the window frames and chimneys is proving a bit of a stretch for the PC. (See the previous post on viral marketing for how it should render including the brickwork texture.) Even with a spanky fast machine it's proving too much. It's not rendered any of the textures or the small details such as the red chimney pots. It hasn't even bothered with the houses in the distance, showing whole terraces as wire frames. Notice the top of the image shows Google SketchUp as 'Not Responding'. At the time of writing it's been like that for over an hour, every few minutes becoming active then locking up again for a similar time.

The grey windows of the further streets are deliberate as the model was never intended to be seen from this angle. (All the action in the viral animation takes place within a single alleyway so the houses are only seen from the rear. Read chapter 7 for the details.) For the book cover these windows will have to be painted in individually. Also the wide screen format of modern monitors doesn't suit the portrait format of a book jacket so chunks of the landscape image will probably be chopped away. The distant houses, if SketchUp can ever be persuaded to render the middle distance, will probably have to be painted in later.

Should I move on from Men Behaving Badly?

Okay, so I need your help. If you've read The Hidden Masters and the Unspeakable Evil you will have your own opinions of it, hopefully positive. You may even be able to make comparisons between my style and that of other writers. However, those who have not read it won't know what to expect, and this is my problem.

In the past I've tried to give readers an idea what to expect by sharing the comparisons that other people made about the book. At book signings and readings people have pointed out similarities to Robert Rankin and Douglas Adams. I'm a huge fan of both these writers and I'm very flattered by the association. Other people have said it's a bit like Terry Pratchett which, to be honest, is probably a bit too much as he sets the bar so high. Some people have even said that it sounds like the English comic absurdity of Tom Sharpe but I think this is from people who have read about it but not actually read the book. I'm very flattered by that possibility.

Those comparisons are on the comic fiction aspect but other parallels are with fantasy and sorcery writers. I'm now using the term urban fantasy as there is magic in my stories, admittedly much of it implied, but the stories are set in the contemporary world of England in the 21st Century. So the genres here are likened to Harry Potter and Dan Brown, although I don't write children's books and I don't write about the supernatural in the way that Dan Brown does.

Based on this feedback I've pitched my marketing material at fans of these authors mentioning them, hopefully subtly enough, to give a hint of what readers will find. Sometimes I worry that readers won't believe me though, as some of these comparisons are pretty staggering. I would tend not to believe a bloke down the pub who said that his small press published books are a bit like these luminaries.

So the phrase that grew up was that The Hidden Masters and the Unspeakable Evil is a bit like Harry Potter meets Men Behaving Badly. Men Behaving Badly because the characters in the book drink far too much dark rum, smoke too many cigarettes and indulge in the occasional Moroccan woodbine, actually more than occasional.

Now I'm in the process of moving all my books to a new publisher, a small press similar to my current publisher but in a position to allow me to concentrate on writing. So it's an opportunity to make some changes in the marketing blurb.

I'm concerned that some of these comparisons are a little too strong, almost unbelievable. Others are a bit out of date or just not very well known. The Harry Potter connection was interesting because that series is now finished and readers might be looking for something new. But there are no broomsticks in my stories and no sparks flying from the ends of wands. In fact the Hidden Masters only contains a couple of events that are clearly supernatural so Harry Potter may not be that appropriate. Also some people don't like Harry Potter because they say it's derivative and unoriginal and stuff like that. However, my point is that Potter is popular and I'm only interested in comparisons that I can use to get my message across to new readers. So if you hate Harry Potter and can't put down your vitriol then I probably don't need your input. At the same time I'm wondering if the Men Behaving Badly connection is now a bit dated so should I stop using that?

So my request is this. If you have read The Hidden Masters and the Unspeakable Evil, and you enjoyed it, please tell me how I should be marketing it. What comparisons with other authors can I use to tell new readers what to expect? This naturally has to be from successful, popular, published authors but I can't help that. Of course if you can think of a way to describe the book without comparing it to published works then that would be great. My new publisher is waiting for the marketing text and I can't write it without your help.

If you want to know what all the fuss is about read the publisher's blurb here

If you don't want to wait for the new edition don't bother with Amazon, they are listing it as out of print. It's never out of print as it's print on demand. It's best to buy it from Blackwells here or order it via your local book shop on the ISBN 978-0-9515329-1-1

Chapter Titles from the Hidden Masters and the Unspeakable Evil

1      The Esbat
2      Elastic
3      Ritual Mechanicians
4      It’s a Beer Thing
5      More Beer
6      The Devil’s Legs
7      Illuminating Experiences
8      Dodgy Characters
9      Chocks Away!
10    The Taste of Dragons
11    Elementals My Dear Wayne
12    Creatures of the Night
13    Vortex
14    Board of Enquiry
15    The Return of The Devil’s Legs
16    Just The One Then
17    Mission Improbable
18    Dubious Infidelity
19    Death By Sword
20    Black
21    Escape to New York
22    How Many Magicians Does It Take?
23    My Number Which is 300
24    Stake
25    Trouser Negotiations
26    Round Table
27    Hit it!
28    Enheavyment
        Epilogue

If you want more click here for an extract from Chapter 2: Jack Barrow on astral travel

And click here for the whole of Chapter 3.

Publisher's blurb here

Don't forget Amazon aren't selling this and list it out of print. It's never out of print as it's print on demand. It's best to buy it from Blackwells here or order it via your local book shop on the ISBN 978-0-9515329-1-1

Storyboarding an animation

I’ve been trying to do a storyboard for a promotional animation for my novel (a scene from the end of Chapter seven). It’s taking ages because I’m really fussing over the dialogue. I tried cutting it down to make it fit a two minute time slot and I just became depressed that it removed all the humour. Now I’ve restored the original dialogue and I’m trying to storyboard it again.

I’ve been at this for months and I continually meet people who have animator friends (they come out of the woodwork) but I find them so frustrating because they offer to help or simply offer advice but without the storyboard they can’t see my vision. Then they ask why I've not made any progress with it.

I’m going around in circles. Trouble is I'm a writer not an animator.

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This post was a couple of years ago. I've made more progress now. I decided not to animate it and did it in a graphic novel style so the storyboard really is the finished article, only with speech bubbles. It's just gone up on You Tube here.

If anybody want to take it further and actually animate it fell free. The Wayne character (the guy with the beard) should have a received pronunciation voice so should sound like an upper middle class Englishman or an old fashioned BBC presenter. The Clint character is less specific except that he's an old hippy from just north of London.