[INDEXED]The Dark Man by Stephen King

[srboone]

I took it, how about you?

[bookworm 1]

. Oh yea !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

I took it, how about you?

[Martin]

I am assuming the ARC stuff came about on Monday when I was away form my computer. Bummer for me!

[adamjames]

I didn't guess correctly, but Brian was awesome about it.

[Ben Staad]

It was a LONG day. I started on the computer at 6 AM and finally logged off around 3 AM the next morning.

Brian

Awesome. I bet you feel like a million bucks now. I would imagine that the hard work (on this project) up to this point makes a day like that not quite as rough.

[Brian James Freeman]

Awesome. I bet you feel like a million bucks now. I would imagine that the hard work (on this project) up to this point makes a day like that not quite as rough.

Now I feel like I should probably be asleep, ha!

We're hitting the real crunch-time for the next few weeks -- there are an amazing number of things to still get done with the printer, slipcase maker, and traycase maker for everything to come together on time. I really like our teams at those companies, but I know I have to keep a close eye on every single detail to keep them on the right track. (Plus there's all kinds of marketing and media and promotional stuff we have to do on a very compressed schedule because of the "surprise" nature of the project.)

To make life more fun, The Dark Man is starting through that process now... and Doctor Sleep starts in about a month. And it's not like everything else has stopped, we have other books to send in-between. It's juggling a lot of balls at the same time, production wise. Things will be a bit stressful until, oh, September when the last copy of Doctor Sleep has shipped.

But hey, if everything comes together the way we've planned, I'm going to be very pleased with these books!

Brian

[Ben Staad]

@ Brian. Not to get off topic but...Do critiques impact/affect you differently between your CD gig and your author gig? Or do you just shrug these off for both?

[TJCams]

I didn't guess correctly, but Brian was awesome about it.

Same here, and I second that comment!

[Teriw]

What about the contest? When do the winners get announced?

[Dan Hocker]

What about the contest? When do the winners get announced?

I think Brian is working on that. I know he said on one of the other message boards when, I just can't remember which one to go look.

[Brian James Freeman]

What about the contest? When do the winners get announced?

Tomorrow!

[Brian James Freeman]

@ Brian. Not to get off topic but...Do critiques impact/affect you differently between your CD gig and your author gig? Or do you just shrug these off for both?

In both cases, I try to evaluate any critiques for validity and valuable/useful information.

For our books, I ask myself: is this note coming from someone who knows his/her stuff? Did we drop the ball in some way or is there something we overlooked or could do differently next time? Or is this note from someone who always complains about everything we do, to the point it seems to be the person's hobby? Or is this note simply from someone who doesn't yet know how the small press works ("why didn't you have Stephen King sign 10,000 copies!?! then everyone could have one!?!" -- real email I woke up to this morning.)

For my writing, again, I look at the source and I try to learn anything I can that will make the next story better. If the person says, "There should have been more vampires!" in a story that wasn't about vampires, you know you can just kind of ignore that. If the person says, "I felt the middle was a little slow" or "I felt the ending happened too fast" -- that's something you can file away and if more readers are saying it, you keep it in mind for future projects. For customer reviews on Amazon, if I get a really bad one -- someone once wrote on Amazon that the only good thing about my work was that it would let every aspiring writer know that you could get published even if you suck at writing -- I like to look at what else the person has reviewed. My genre? Different genres? Are they all bad reviews? What does the reader actually like?

Sometimes it's just a swing and a miss, you know?
Brian

[Ben Staad]

Sometimes it's just a swing and a miss, you know?
Brian

Thanks for the answer. Makes me think of one of my favorite movies. "Swing Away!"

[subie09lega]

It's contaminated.

Thanks for the answer. Makes me think of one of my favorite movies. "Swing Away!"

[Theli]

Ha ha, man was that a stupid movie. Kinda scary on first watch though, you know, until you reach the end.