Category / By Matthew Rollins

by Matthew

Writus Interruptus

An Alaskan fjord filled with small icebergs and smooth blue-green water, approaching the South Sawyer Glacier.

Well, the distractions of summer have come and gone, so time for an update from yours truly as we barrel headfirst into fall. In DFW, that means football, the Texas State Fair (corndogs!), lingering summer temps (actually has been a pleasant September so far), and kids back in school.

Travel is one of humanity’s great pleasures. My family took three trips this summer: a week in New York City, fifteen days all over Alaska, and five days at the Atlantis resort in The Bahamas. Wonderful experiences, all. The photo above is from the approach to South Sawyer glacier, about a 2-hour boat ride north of Juneau. That scene was totally epic, frigid, and one of the pinnacles of summer for me. I am a cold weather critter.

This summer wasn’t a particularly productive one for me as far as writing goes. I got to experience my first bout of COVID-19, which was relatively mild, but also exactly zero fun for a few days. My kiddo’s been busy with camps from one end of Dallas to the other. And we tend to be last-minute planners on trips, so much of my limited writing time at night got redirected to trip planning/booking. Between trips was recovery, laundry, unpacking, and more packing, and driving my kiddo all over town to playdates or managing sleepovers. I made some headway with Steelwing 2 (title forthcoming!), but progressed far more once school started. I watched from afar as Dangers to Society languished on Amazon’s Kindle Vella platform with few readers. Once the 30-day the exclusivity period with Vella had lapsed (after the final episode was released), I could get going on the physical copies of D2S, so here’s that announcement:

Dangers to Society on sale October 1st, 2024!!

Here’s my store link if you’d like to preorder a signed copy directly from me. The eBook is available for preorder now on Amazon. On (or around) October 1st, the title will be available to purchase in paperback and hardcover

One of the earlier pieces of advice aspiring authors will receive is to write the story they want to read. Dangers to Society is that story for me. I greatly enjoy Steelwing, the forthcoming sequel, and the other stories I’m working on. But D2S strikes a special chord, because it is a whole bunch of things at once: fun, silly, stupid, and smart. It possesses a modicum of social commentary, but doesn’t take the message that seriously. It inspires the imagination. It makes you say – I know that place (if you’ve been to Dallas at least). It plays out on the movie screen in your mind. I have a wonderful, engaging premise to follow for the follow-up, but probably won’t open that can of worms until at least Steelwing 3 is wrapped up. Hopefully good sales will make that a harder decision – so help a brother out!

When you’re an indie author and going on your own steam, there is a lot to do. Polish the heck out of the manuscript. Have it edited. Do interior design (not terribly hard, just time consuming), cover design (or artist searching/hiring), cover templates for Amazon and Ingram Spark, project setup at both (neither of which are similar or smooth processes). The cover templates are annoyingly different and exact, and any slight deviation from their expectations can mean days of delays. There are reasons publishers take years to publish a book after they acquire it from an author.

The cover of the novel Dangers to Society by Matthew Rollins

I totally dig the cover. So orange.

And then there’s all the marketing. So much promoting, social media, the research between those, it can make your head spin. You can do as little as zero, but expect commensurate results with your marketing efforts. I’ve been patient after launching Steelwing to rely on word of mouth and do very limited social media advertising, but will work a little harder on marketing with each title released. Another recent piece of advice I’ve received is that the best advertising of your back catalogue is your newest book, so I’ve taken that to heart and attempted to keep my funnel of new projects ahead of stagnation. I expect sales of Steelwing to tick upward once Steelwing 2 comes out, and both will rise further when the third book is released in 2025. Marketing remains a challenge to me, but it’s something I’m aware I need to work on and will hit that subject harder in the months to come. Maybe I’ll even get my awkward self on TikTok (gulp).

So, with all of these “other” things to do during my limited writing time, it’s hard to keep putting out fresh word count consistently. I started writing in earnest mid 2017, and I am definitely feeling the years that have lapsed since then. Some lingering injuries (back), some new ones (tailbone), some genetic susceptibilities (neck), and a gripful of new medications have all put downward pressure on my late-night stamina. Back when I was writing the first draft Dangers to Society in 2019 and 2020, I could stay up until 2-3AM when the words were flying. Now, midnight is usually my limit. But I keep at it. My interest in writing and my stories remains keen, so I know I’m spending what free time I have doing something I love.

Building Worlds is not only the name of my blog, but my publishing company, with which I am to help authors like me get their books out into the world. At the moment it’s just my own books, but I hope to use the work I’ve done on my own as an example for what can be done with some passion and just a little bit of care and artistic gravitas. If you happen to be coming to DFWCon this year, look for me and let’s strike up a conversation!

That’s all for now. Keep writing (when you can)!

by Matthew

Dangers to Society: Out Now!

The big news train for 2024 keeps rolling on!

As of May 20, Episodes of my second story, Dangers to Society, have begun to appear on Amazon’s serial platform Kindle Vella. A new episode will come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday through summer 2024. Episodes will typically consist of 1-2 chapters, depending on length. The first episode has the prologue and first three chapters because they’re a little shorter. The first 10 episodes are free to read (that gets you through chapter 18!), so you totally have no reason not to give it a try! Episode 2 comes out May 22nd.

If you’ve not heard of it, Kindle Vella is part of Amazon’s Kindle platform and offers readers the chance to “pay as you go” if you will, purchasing tokens to spend on serial story episodes as they become available, and the reader wants to read them. Episodes 11-on cost 10 tokens each. With Amazon’s best deal, a token costs less than a penny, so Vella is actually less expensive than buying the whole eBook. But what if you start a Vella story and don’t finish? Get a quarter of the way in lose interest? Done. No more books on your DNF pile you paid 100% for. It’s also an avenue for authors who crave more interaction and a potentially far shorter runway to get their latest work to their audience. Vella also gives authors the option to add notes and polls to each episode to help further connect readers to their favorite authors. To use Vella, you’ll need an Amazon account and a Kindle device, Kindle app on your phone, or via the Kindle website on your preferred web browser. Experienced Kindle eBook readers will already have everything they need.

Now let’s talk Dangers to Society!

Dangers to Society is an adult contemporary superpowers (but not superheroes) fantasy. It features a lot of swearing, a little bit of spice (1.5-2), and just a smidge of sudden, graphic violence. It’s light-hearted, a little smart, a lot stupid, and crazy fun.

I love, love, love this story – it’s right up my alley. I really hope it does well, either on Vella, or as a published novel after the episodes are done releasing, because I truly want a reason to return to this world (other than my own interest). There’s already a primary outline for Dangers to Society Vol. 2 floating around in my head, and it’d be great to get to work on that soon.

Game of Thrones was still en vogue when I began writing Dangers to Society and I had begun to read the massive Stormlight Archives books by Brandon Sanderson, so I was interested in attempting a story with multiple main characters and points of view. It features five viewpoints (well, really six, but that guy gets the Ned Stark treatment early).

Dangers to Society is my answer to the question “What would happen if our society right now (or very near in the future) began to develop superpowers, most of which were silly?” Well, for one, we’d get a new government agency. And some compelling agents to follow. And some politicians who want to control things. Natch. Because the abilities can be silly, we end up with some particularly goofy ones, which I think is great fun. But there are some dangerous ones out there too (hence the title). We follow four agents based in Dallas, TX as they navigate their own abilities, catalog others, and try to uncover a mysterious plot that unfolds when facts in the president’s press conferences prove to be wrong. But don’t just take my word for it, here’s a few quotes from readers:

Tight pacing, great characters, relevant modern setting, and an entertaining humorous turn of phrase

A rare pleasure

Evident technical skill and a keen intelligence

Beautifully Written

Emotional, tactile, immediate

Impressed the f**k out of me

Gotta say, when people drop those kinds of compliments on your work, it’s pretty humbling. Yet despite how awesome D2S is, I had no luck with finding an interested agent for the manuscript. I will admit, the story is a little off-the-wall, the word count is higher than agents like, and because it’s far more character-driven than plot-driven, it’s a slower ride. It also entered the query trenches on the heels of Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame movie and the beginning of Marvel fatigue, the emergence of The Boys on Prime Video, and the continued struggles of the DC cinematic universe to connect with audiences as effectively as Marvel usually does. So, I’m not surprised an agent didn’t bite. If they don’t have an acquisitions editor asking for something (“Hey, I need a wacky superpowers story for adults!”), the agent will simply pass because they’re too busy to work on anything but stuff they know will have better odds with the publishers. But everyone who’s read Dangers has loved it, so it didn’t feel right to just let it languish in the drawer, never to see the light of day.

Since I cracked open the self-publishing seal last fall with Steelwing, I felt that I needed to get Dangers to Society out there. And I’m curious about Kindle Vella, because of the immediacy of publication, and it kinda fits with the modern TikTok vibe of short attention spans. Read a chapter on the toilet, anyone? Plus, D2S is also a fairly long story (by modern publishing standards) at 130k words (necessary because of all the viewpoints), so I have room to publish somewhere around 40 episodes which I think would be a nice test to see how Vella works.

A wonderful (and very patient) artist created this cover last year for a potential self-published D2S novel before my focus went to releasing Steelwing. I think it’s pretty fun, but it’s proven kind of divisive. Some really like the meteors and butterfly motif (done by yours truly), others really like the graphic novel panels style. I also made the following prototype, following design trends of recent thrillers:

I think they all have good qualities, though perhaps none of them are a perfect representation of everything that goes on in the book – certainly not the humor, which is subtle, but always around the corner. Drop a comment below as to which you prefer!

Releasing a story on Vella is an exclusive gig. It can only be there while the story is ongoing. Once the final episode of the story has been out for 30 days, I can release a full eBook and physical versions, so look for those this fall to add to your collection as well. More news on that here later this summer.

A Call to Action:

There’s a handy QR code to use to go straight to the Vella Dangers to Society page (or click on it). Get to reading! Since the first episode is free, tell your friends! More than that, I hope you love it and want to keep reading. I tend to do most of my social media stuff on Instagram these days, so look for me there and drop some comments, questions, or mention your favorite silly superpower.

As always, thanks for reading. M

(Update note: This post was updated on June 2nd with fresh info on the cost of Tokens and the number of free episodes)

by Matthew

Launch Day

Hey everyone, long time no post.

I’m back, and well, I have news. I’m an author.

Not a writer. Not an aspiring writer. An honest-to-goodness author.

It’s interesting that funny little distinction exists. I am very much the same person today as I was yesterday: slightly older, arguably wiser, perhaps in some circles more distinguished, and certainly in the case of my dermatologist, more profitable. Yet I digress.

I published a book. Steelwing, a middle grade-tween video game fantasy. It’s super fun. Got a lot of traction with literary agents with it, but ultimately none of them “fell in love” with it, as they all like to say. For some, I think the video game setting wasn’t their cup of tea. For others, maybe my writing style didn’t jive with them. Yet for all, I think the honest answer was this: “I don’t know anyone who will buy this right now.”

And by someone, we’re talking acquisition editors at a traditional publishing house. Large or small, the agents and AEs talk. So agents know what AEs are looking for. There are myriad hurdles to get past even if you get to the point where you get an agent and an acquisition editor picks up your story. But the agent’s primary concern is to filter through their slush pile for the rare gems that happen to be at least two things: decent enough writing and something they know with reasonable confidence at least one acquisition editor already wants.

So that wasn’t Steelwing. C’est la vie.

What’s a writer with a “good enough but not wanted” story to do? Do it themselves.

I got Vellum. I learned how to format the interior pages.

I scoured the internet for a cover artist that was both awesome and within my budget.

I learned the mechanisms of setup in both Amazon KDP and Ingram Spark (where bookstores and libraries get their books).

I decided to create my own business, Building Worlds Books, and become my own publisher.

And I picked a date out of the blue. Gave myself a deadline to just say it’s ready. Without that, I’m certain this process could have dragged on and on. My eye for detail is keen, and my first-born perfectionism complex is pronounced. Amazon and Ingram will let you update files after things are launched, which I’m sure will be needed. So I’ll be okay. The hardcover’s cover file hasn’t passed Amazon’s scrutiny yet, and undoubtedly there’ll be a typo or misnomer or some other textual oddity that I won’t abide existing and will want to fix. So that’s nice. But it’s out there as of today.

Unfortunately, that’s just the beginning. Now comes the marketing. And the marketing. And the marketing. I’ve gotta get better at using social media. I need to buy some ads on Amazon and Facebook. Self-publishing is definitely a pay-to-play arena.

And now that Steelwing’s book birthday has arrived, I come to the understanding that today is not crossing the finish line, but starting the race. Everything up to this point has been training. Now comes the marathon of marketing. Ads. Book signings. Getting the word out. Rinse, repeat.

Here’s where I put on the salesman hat: If you’d like a signed copy of Steelwing, head over to Building Worlds Books and click the shop link. I’m doing the fulfilment all by myself, so it will be done with love and kindness.

If you’d like a less expensive, unsigned copy, head over to Amazon (sponsored link), where I will appreciate you just as much.

I also have a book signing coming up already on Sunday, November 12th from 1:00PM-3:00PM at the Half Price Books flagship bookstore in Dallas. 5803 E NW Hwy, Dallas, TX 75231. I will have books there for sale. Come say hi!

That’s it for now. Lots more to come on how the whole process went down, what I’ve learned, and what’s in store for the future. Stay tuned! M