Very cool Brandon and congrats again on everything! I can't wait to get a hold of one of those special editions, just hope I have enough money at the time to do so. Good luck and best wishes.

David

Nice.

Congrats

Looking forward to buying.

Stuart

what was updated? I don't wanna have to read through all that again.

i don't think it was updated, i just think it was deemed front page worthy.

i don't think it was updated, brother Kabol. i think it was just deemed front page news, and moved on over there for some promo.

I think the title got updated to add the "From Writer to Author"

So Brandon. You say that you had considered yourself a writer for 6 years before releasing OOT. Later, you mention that you hadn't written a short story in about 6 years.

Did you spend that whole time working on OOT?

@ Matt & Nate - right guys, no actual updates besides it being moved to the front page.

@ Austin - My last short story before these new ones I put on workshop was back in 2003 when I was going to KU. I wrote two other books before OOT, always of a mind that you had to do novels and that learning the short game would be a waste. So wrong on that one. Taking the time to learn the short format of writing was one of my better decisions, and a good way to build up credentials with lit mags and such. Learning ANY format really is a good thing: short, flash, microflash, essay, magazine article, etc.

@ everyone - Thanks again, guys. The last 24 hours have been kind of a trip: lots of emails, PMs, comments, etc. All the support has been great and I'm happy to see some writers taking it to heart as they approach their own projects.

-BT

Are there plans to rehash and release these early works?

Hell-to-the-no!

Those two are my bastard children. They'll never see the light of day.

I don't know what the other two are about or anything but you're not just deleting them completely are you? Mine that shit! Take the good lines out and use them somewhere else, use what you've learned to polish other bits, character names or places can be salvaged. You spent the time creating them, don't just flush them down entirely.

As a writer who mines his own work extensively, I have to believe that we have probably already seen some of aforementioned lines.

Hell, I've got at least two lines in the WS that have been harvested from earlier submissions(you know the ones, where we try all the new tricks CP writes about).

UPDATE: As of last night, my edits and rewrites are complete. The manuscript is now twenty-five pages longer; 294 total. I'll end up going over the entire ms a couple more times looking for cosmetic stuff, then it's off to line and copy editing over at the publisher. I feel really good about it, though.

Some people have expressed concern over the changes. Believe me though, after sitting on it for so many months and being in workshop, I definitely made improvements where improvements could be made.

Also, I'll be getting with the graphic designer tomorrow and we'll be working on the cover. Hopefully, I'll have some images for you guys in the immediate future.

Finally, I got to give a big thanks to Dennis Widmyer for making this front page news. It's put me on a lot of people's radars and the vanity edition is selling pretty consistently now. I don't know the exact figures on that yet, but let's just say that I think May 2010 might be my biggest sales month yet. Hopefully, I can match that come November pre-order time.

Thanks,
-BT

Great to read this. Brandon is a really talented writer. I've really loved a lot of his workshop submissions, and recently read OOT, and thought it was great. He's an emerging author, so get in on the ground floor before he's too huge to return your PMs. Congrats on all of your success Brandon, you deserve it. Glad to have you at OWP.

I like the first photo of the redhead. She reminds me of some broad I banged back in '02.

Congrats, Brendon but c'mon man. Cujo didn't make his own fan page. Who makes their own fan page?

First, it's Brandon Tietz, not Brendan.
Second, if you have over 5000 FB friends, it's the ONLY way to expand your Facebook empire, really. I know, it does seem rather self-serving. I guess you could also start a Group. I'm at about 3000 friends, having adapted my FB from my actual friends into an author page, basically. Ideally, if you're a big star (writer or otherwise) it'd be great if somebody else started a fan page FOR you, but then, how do you get access to your people? You have to be the one in charge. It's like starting your own blog. Once you're over 5000 people, the only options are groups or fan pages (to my knowledge). It's tricky, but unless you've tried to go out and promote yourself, and understand how hard it is, and to do it for little money or FREE, well...something about glass houses and stones, I think. A lot of people do start their own FB Fan pages, as a way to have a place to communicate with their fans.

/mytwocents

UPDATE: A few months ago we did principle photography for the new cover. I thought the shots turned out pretty good, but once we started working on this thing, it seemed like we kept running into problem after problem: logistical stuff like reflections in the lenses and backgrounds that didn’t work with what we were trying to do. The lighting we used wasn’t right. The image was sliding down a slippery slope of quality as we tried to turn it into a cover.

So…we cut our losses and did the shoot over.

Here are a few of the raw images:

Regarding the actual cover design, I was keeping a couple things in mind. The first is that I wanted to give a nod to the original cover, so I’ve opted to keep the banner-on-white layout with the same general color palette. The other thing was the idea of sensory deficiency, and incorporating that in a visual way--specifically, Dana Lafon and blindness, and I thought the 5x5 dot font paired up nicely with Braille.

Here are a few mock-ups. They’re not complete by any means but the general idea is there:

The spine is pretty much done. “Out of Touch," in Braille…should stick out like a sore thumb on a bookshelf:

Inlets and back cover are still in the works, but those should be easy.

In other news, Michael Sonbert, author of The Never Enders, recently inked a deal with Otherworld to release We Are Oblivion in May 2011. If memory serves, he and I have been talking about teaming up for the better part of a year. Being on the same label makes that a lot easier to do. The dates and details aren’t nailed down quite yet, but he’ll be coming to Kansas City around January or February to do a Barnes & Noble reading as well as another one in an art gallery where we can play things a little less formal. Gordon Highland and Caleb J. Ross will also be involved in that, so this is going to be a sort of Cult/Velvet reading.

Also, it looks like Out of Touch made it into The Cult book club along with Transubstantiate and We Are Oblivion. Very fucking cool. We’re all really happy that The Cult is lending a hand in getting us read and getting our names out there. At this stage in the game, that makes a big difference.

Lots of other stuff is in the works, but more on that later.

Thanks,
-BT

Third cover, definitely. Congratulations on all your success.

I wonder how particular she is about her hair color.

that's awesome...some very cool stuff going on brandon, and i'm thrilled to have sonbert join us at OWP, very exciting - hell, maybe i'll come down in jan/feb to join you all, had such a blast last time

I think there's way too much going on in those mock-up covers, Brandon. too many dots and red. it's distracting. the spine is cool though.

I'd agree there. The second pic is the one that comes closest to working, but they're all either too busy in the background (1) or too busy with after effects (2 and 3).

Since the cover's white, I almost wonder if it wouldn't be cool to keep the braille dots and then just blow the shit out of the lighting on the pic so it's just the silhouette of the girl, the glasses, her mouth, that kind of thing.

I dunno, these just seem to have lost the club mystique the first one had, mostly because it's broad daylight in downtown.

The spine, however, is a winner.

Yeah, like I said, not complete by any means. Xander, Tony, and Pete actually gave me a lot of good feedback...going more minimal, color selections, cropping suggestions, that kind of thing. I'm still finding the balance on the Braille-to-text ratio. And these are still the raw images, as you could probably tell. I haven't even begun to mess with filters or anything like that.

As far as the club thing goes, I thought on that one for a while...to the point where I was mapping out ideas and whatnot, but ultimately, I never came up with anything that I was too thrilled about. Showcasing a main character made more sense, and that's more or less how I came up with the idea for the spine...then it took off from there.

Hey Brandon, I want to say that I like your story and I like your writing style... You have a lot of moxy and/or balls and that's what it takes to make it and you will do just fine.

I am in the "middle stage" of completing my new novel and I am willing to trade you copy for copy of a limited & signed edition and who knows... maybe one day we could brainstorm to work on a few ideas that I have for an upcoming novel.

Great job and good luck with all.

-pctrell

I really enjoyed reading your "pretend author" story..would've enjoyed a little more if you were a "pretend Writer" Hope to be like you some night when I eventually decide to "grow up"... My hats off to you and your BALLS!!! keep it going

I really liked your "Pretend Author" story. Great work Keep it going

lolwut?

NO U! NATE!

Everytime I see you post that's all I can say in my head and I picture Chevy Chase doing the whole flamboyant oh stop gesture with his hand while saying 'No, U!' .

Damn you Nate!

I hate to say it but I don't dig the photos for the cover. They look like a fifteen year old girl's photography project.

The font and spine's cool though.

I think it would look really eye-catching to just have the title on the cover (in the same font, red perhaps) with the grey background. Keep that spine design too.

Hello Mr Brandon Tietz. Pretty new cult member here, I don't think we have chatted at all. Hope you are well.

Your book sounds really interesting, recently I have been looking for a few new authors to read. (preferebly within the trangsgressive / neo noir genres)You just made the list.

I think it's good that you have been open about how much of a struggle you have been through getting the publishing world to give you a real chance. You obviously care deeply about your writing. I think the honesty you show in telling us how you got to this stage will be quite inspiring.

I ordered a hardback of your book. (with shipping to the UK it's pretty pricey but I'm in a mood to spoil myself.) I hope the limited run of personalised copies hasn't expired.

Have you had much interest from outside of the USA? I know alot of this sort of stuff doesn't sell very well over here.

Good luck! Look forward to reading the book.

voodoo - make sure that you participate in our book club discussion of Out of Touch in February.

@voodoo

Thanks for the kind words, man...and the order. Very cool. I checked and you made the cut for one of the signed editions with bonus content.

Yeah, I've got some readers outside of the States...mostly Europe, and then a few scattered about Canada, Mexico, Australia, etc. I know international shipping ain't cheap, so I do appreciate it, man. Hope you enjoy it.

Thanks again,
-BT

I started it last night and I couldn't put it down. Good shit. Can't wait to finish it.

Kitty is also a fan.

photo to appear on facebook in 3...2..1..

great picture, glad you're digging brandon's book des, i thought it might be too "palahniuk-y" but i ended up loving it

ScribblingDes wrote:

Kitty is also a fan.

^^^LIKE!^^^

Is there a Kindle edition yet?

No, it's not even technically out until Jan. 14th. There will be a Kindle version, but probably not for a couple months...depends on when the publisher decides to submit it for that particular format.

It is definitely Palahniuk-y, but I really liked it. It's way better than Chuck's last few.

Now I need to get a copy of yours that i don't mind messing up so I can read it, Richard. My copy is too special for reading!

awwww...keep an eye on ebay, saw one sell on there for a couple bucks if you want i'll send you a pdf ARC, no charge, just for supporting everyone here, shoot me an email to wickerkat@aol.com if you want that

i have a hard time reading long prose on the computer though, short stories...maybe

oh! I can read the pdf on my kindle! I just have to figure out how to get it there.

Richard - I thought you had a kindle version of Transubstantiate out. Don't you? If so - that would be perfect for her!

Yes, I would like to buy these books on my Kindle please.

I would avoid PDFs on your Kindle, too much zooming and panning necessary (because the text lines don't reflow when resized in a PDF), and it's a real pain to read that way. But if you can get a DOC or RTF, you can e-mail that to your free Kindle account to get it on there, and those work very well, like normal ebooks. I use this all the time for short stories and my own work. Very convenient to have on there.

I talked to my publisher yesterday about what's going to happen with the Kindle format. She said that we will indeed have that format now that certain hurdles have been cleared on the business side of things. Everyone on the label will eventually have this version, but it won't be rolling out immediately just yet, nor do I expect all the authors to get it all at once.

i have something up on smashwords:

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/19762

and kindle is one format

OWP is making significant changes though, as Brandon said, so we should be up on Amazon and other places as a Kindle format soon, just takes time

brandon - when is your hardcover going to be up on Amazon? any idea? i'm broke and using my Amazon gift cards, want to make sure i get your hardcover, and hopefully one of the first 100 with the extras, but only saw your old version up there - any idea?

I imagine sometime within a week after the 14th. Not completely sure on that, but I'll hit you up when it's there.

I wouldnt bother with a Kindle at all.

As soon as you cats have Kindle editions, you can count me as a sale.