Tim Akers

As an author, I have limited access to BookScan numbers for my titles. And while I’ve heard some horror stories about how inaccurate their numbers can be, I find them helpful for tracking trends and demographics. I’d like to talk a little bit about those trends for The Pagan Night.

First of all, we’re two months into the release. That’s enough time to smooth out initial demand and any localized campaigning that I might have done. Early on, the book was selling very heavily in the Chicago area. That’s evened out. The people who are buying the book now are folks who have heard good things from their friends, or who happen to see the book on the shelf and pick it up. My sparkling personality has little to nothing to do with this.

One of the coolest tools that BookScan gives me is a Sales by Geography feature that’s a literal map of the US with counts over a 4, 8, 24 and 52 week period. This is how I know that Chicago was doing so well early on, but has now pulled back. The current top five cities for The Pagan Night are Chicago, New York, Boston, Seattle and Los Angeles. In some ways I think that’s just a heat map of the population, with the noted exception of LA coming behind Boston and Seattle. There are also a lot of high population areas that don’t seem to care about my books at all, including much of the south and south west. There hasn’t been much movement in Ohio, Indiana or Michigan, but Minnesota is number six on the list, only a hair behind Los Angeles. Strange stuff.

More interesting still, if you only look at the last month of sales, there are surges in places like Atlanta, Sacramento and Dallas. Nearly all my sales in Texas have been in the last month. Salt Lake City suddenly appears on the map.

Of course, there are things worth noting. BookScan misses a lot of sales, especially among independents, and it apparently doesn’t track ebook sales at all. The fact that Portland barely registers on the list might have more to do with the strength of Powell’s bookstore than anything else. And maybe folks in Texas simply prefer their kindles. I have no idea.

I will say, one disappointment is the weakness in my home state, North Carolina. Maybe everyone’s just watching basketball.

In this case, they come from the depths of my writing bunker as I struggle to make my next deadline. The sequel to T he Pagan Night is maybe half way done, and that’s only the first draft. I’m really a revision writer, so even after I finish these 160k words, there’s going to be a lot of work to get them presentable. The reaction to TPN has been so positive that I really want to get this book to you as soon as I can, which means I haven’t been updating here. And now I’m taking it a step further and withdrawing from social media for the next month or so.

Anyway. Thanks for your patience. And thanks also for all the feedback on The Pagan Night! It means a lot to me that so many people have read and enjoyed the book.

See you on the other side of the deadline!

I’m going to be at Capricon in Wheeling, Illinois this weekend, saying smart things in public, expounding on the great mysteries of the universe, and possibly drinking at least one beer.

Here’s my schedule for the convention. Do come around, won’t you?

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What would SF Look Like in a Science Fiction World? – Friday, 02-12-2016 – 10:00 am to 11:30 am – River B
If starships and robots are part of your everyday life, what would your science fiction be about?
Tim Akers 
Gail Z Martin
Kristine Smith (M)

Religion in SF & F – Friday, 02-12-2016 – 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm – River B
From the Fosterites in Stranger in a Strange Land to the Necromongers of Chronicles of Riddick, religions in SF & F have shaped the stories where they appear. Which books and movies have done religion well?
Tim Akers
Melissa Huston
Jesi Pershing (M) 
Isabel Schechter 

Reading: Tim Akers – Friday, 02-12-2016 – 7:30 pm to 8:00 pm – Birch A
Tim Akers is the author of Heart of Veridon, Dead of Veridon, The Horns of Ruin and the upcoming epically weird fantasy, The Pagan Night.
Tim Akers 

Beginning, Middle, and End – Saturday, 02-13-2016 – 11:30 am to 1:00 pm – Willow
Does structure matter when telling a story? Should there be a clearly defined beginning, middle, and end? Is it really needed? Can the end come first, or in the middle?
Tim Akers 
Elizabeth Bear 
Richard Chwedyk (M)
Phyllis Eisenstein
Elizabeth Anne Hull 

Autographing: Eric Wilkerson, Elizabeth Bear, Tim Akers – Saturday, 02-13-2016 – 2:30 pm to 3:15 pm – Autograph Table

Tim Akers
Elizabeth Bear
Eric Wilkerson 

There are a bunch of exciting interviews and articles I did in preparation for the release of The Pagan Night. As those become available online, I thought I’d keep a running tally on this post. That way you can be sure to stay current on all the brilliant things I’ve said without having to scour Twitter for the announcements. Internet magics!

The Swag!

Enter to win a copy of The Pagan Night at Goodreads

The Latest!

 

Writing is a learning process. Here are the Five Things I Learned while writing The Pagan Night.

 

Things you might have missed!

Interviews:

I sound smart on this podcast interview with Cabbages and Kings!

The Qwillery asks me about writing

I have an interview with Sean Grigsby

More questions at Suvudu

An interview with me over at Hellnotes

Reviews:

SciFiNow says The Pagan Night “builds up beautifully, creating a riveting world.”

RPG Net calls The Pagan Night “Fast paced… an epic fantasy story with action, intrigue, and a good story.”

Rising Shadows says that it “Delivers enough twists and surprises to keep readers fascinated…contains action, grittiness, magic, intrigue and well created characters.”

Booklist gave The Pagan Night a starred review!

Publishers Weekly reviewed (and loved) the book

As did Farsight

And The Bookbag!

 

Articles:

At the Barnes & Noble SF/F blog I talk about using game structure to plot your novels.

I have an article at SFSignal about Tolkien and religion!

Our Imaginary Friends – Suvudu

Our Lord and Savior Viking Christ – Horror Cult Films UK

 

If you see anything that I’ve missed, please feel free to drop me a line or perhaps find me on Twitter! I’d love to hear what you think of the book!

 

So. Into the Badlands. If you didn’t watch it, let me start by commending it to you. I’m going to talk a little bit about it here, but I’ll tryto avoid spoilers. It’s a good show. Watch it.

Last night was the final episode of the season. I want to start by listing everything I liked about the show.

1) The aesthetic – high action kung fu set in a post apocalyptic Louisiana? Yes. Heavy steampunk influence? Yes. Weird mythology based on ancient Chinese legend. Oh, yes.

2) The characters – The show achieved one of those strange things that good stories need to achieve. The characters drove the story. Each character had their own motivations, and the story came from the interaction of those motivations. Nothing was imposed from the outside. The narrative flowed from natural character interaction. Good stuff.

3) The action – Good fight scenes, well choreographed, with very real and believable consequences. Most of the kung fu was entirely natural. There was some wire work, but the show is honest about some of the kung fu being supernatural, and they try to limit the wire work to the application of those supernatural powers. There are exceptions, but they don’t detract from the action.

3a) one negative – women fighting in high heels. Several of the characters are corset wearing ninja-ladies who strut around in super-sexah high heeled boots. But once the fighting starts, they’re shown in flats, because no one fights in high heels.

Let the ladies wear practical shoes, Hollywood. Ladies can be sexy as hell in practical shoes.

4) Diversity – There’s a great diversity of characters, across races and genders. Are there groups that are absent? Yes. But I was pleased with the seamless inclusion of powerful characters of many, many groups.

With all of that said, I have one complaint. This was sold to me as a mini-series. I was looking forward to some kind of resolution, even a lesser resolution that would have left open the possibility of a future series. But that’s not what this was. This was the first season of a show that hasn’t sold the rights to the second season yet. Hopefully it’ll get picked up, but don’t pretend it’s a closed story.

It’s time to rouse the hounds and change the oil in the media machine! The Pagan Night launches in January, and I need to start planning my blog tour and related internet activities for that critical end-of-month period. If you have a venue that you think would be improved by my shining presence, please contact me and let me know! I’d be happy to do guest posts, interviews, podcast appearances, and psychically projected dramatic readings of all kinds.

Warning: the psychically projected readings have some… lingering effects.

I’ll be appearing at Windycon this weekend, in glamorous Lombard, Illinois. Come to the Yorktown Westin and listen to me spout profoundly about religion in fantasy, fantasy in religion, and sometimes even writing stuff! If you come to my reading on Saturday you can hear the first chapter of The Pagan Night, and if you come to my signing you can watch me sit awkwardly in complete isolation! Here’s my schedule:

This month has been taken up with the rather hectic business of getting The Pagan Night into its final fighting trim for the January release, as well as launching in on The Iron Hound. But I finally have the final cover for The Pagan Night! Check out those blurbs!

I will also be sharing some of the beautiful interior illustrations in the coming weeks, so watch this space!

 

From pretty much the beginning of my writing career, I’ve gotten the question of why I write fantasy. Sometimes it’s asked harmlessly, but sometimes it’s meant as a slur. Why don’t you write something serious, they mean. Why don’t you write something that will matter. And it’s not a terrible question, as these things go. After all, most people view fantasy as a passing entertainment, or something that kids enjoy. I have a lot of conversations about my work with friends and colleagues that end with something along the lines of “Oh, my kids love this stuff.” It drives me nuts.

So why do I write fantasy? I guess my basic reason is that fantasy is my native language. It’s the mechanism I deploy whenever I’m trying to get at an idea, either simple or complex. I find that it’s a more nuanced tool than anything reality can offer. Since a lot of my writing is about religion, and people tend to be sensitive when it comes to their belief systems, it’s easier for me to form a complex metaphor around an idea and then approach my point through illusion and phantasm. You can ease people into a sense of comfort, then confront them with ideas that, if presented in real world terms, would cause them to immediately throw up their shields and ignore your point. In our modern partisan era it’s almost impossible to have a nuanced conversation about religion and politics. But it can be done through fantasy. And, if done well, you might not even know you’re having that conversation.

By the way, one of the things that I don’t like about a lot of message fantasy is that it’s not subtle enough. It drags the narrative through its point like a drowning rat. It sacrifices story, and it ruins the metaphor. The only people who are actually going to enjoy those stories are people who already agree with you. And while it’s nice to give them something to read, it doesn’t really advance your message. A friend of mine once described my stories as an idea engine that had been drilled to save weight. I like that.

I meant to write something here about elves, but I didn’t. Maybe next time.

You can now preorder The Pagan Night, the first book in The Hallowed War series, from Amazon, B&N, Indiebound and Kobo!