Learning Over Years…

DIE HARD…

Well, The Kris and Dean Show Does DIE HARD is finished and all up. 30 videos. Going to take those who signed up hours to go through it. Took us a bunch of hours to record it. It is on WMG Teachable.

But Kris mentioned this right at the start how different we were going to do this compared to when we used to do this 30 years ago at conventions. And she was right. The reason going through Die Hard now is different is how much we have learned.

I saw a ton of details about pacing I never would have seen before.

I saw a ton of details about information flow I never would have seen before.

I saw a ton of details about characterization I never would have seen before.

And story, this movie is perfect story down to the very last detail. Wow.

We tried to relay what we could and explain in places how you would do this in a book, but so much of the new stuff we saw was just way, way advanced. But if you went through this now, then took all 18 of the Advanced Craft Classes over the next three years while writing like crazy and studying at the same time, then came back to the movie, you would be as stunned as we were at how this worked and how advanced it is on so many levels.

So a reason this Christmas movie holds up after almost 40 years. It is just great story.

Patterns of Kickstarters…

I have done 45 Kickstarter campaigns for books and publishing projects now. That’s right, 45…

And I have backed hundreds and studied thousands and thousands in the publishing world. And I can tell pretty well what a campaign will do. I am not often far off.

The Santa Series campaign we now have going for a short seven days I figured would take 2 days to reach its funding goal of $1,500 and then end up at the end around $5,000 if we were lucky. Well, I was wrong on the start. We funded in under a day.

Now we are doing this right before Christmas (and will have electronic books to everyone by Christmas). They are also holiday books and romantasy (romance and fantasy combined). Kickstarter is working to build romance readers, but that genre is still way, way behind science fiction and fantasy and mystery, weirdly enough.

But the look of the covers is stunning on these books and they are Kristine Grayson, which has a fan following of her fun romance fantasy novels. So that helps.

And if you have never read any Grayson, give these books a try. Sweet romance with fun fantasy all the way through. Just delightful reading.  Watch the fun video Kris did for this one.