Canister X – A.P. Fuchs: Zombie, Paranormal Romance and Superhero Novelist, Blogger, Artist, Publisher

Sample front-and-back book cover

After over nine years in the business and over 100 book cover designs, my wife and I have decided to avail our book design services to authors and publishers. We also understand that publishing can be an expensive business and so we kept that in mind when choosing our rates.

A website with our portfolio is at Book Covers For Less – (we’re still adding to the gallery and tweaking the site.)

First time clients receive 10% off.

Our covers and packages range in price from $99 – $249 (the latter is a mondo package including eBook, paperback, hardcover covers as well as a bunch of extras). These rates are about half of the going rate for the same services elsewhere.

We hope we can do business with you. Please contact via the site with any questions.

Thanks.

Last night I took part in an interview at The New Dragon Talk, which is a video version of its predecessor, Dragon Talk Radio (of which I was on a couple years back). Hosted by Jon Klement, it was a great time and we talked about comics, superheroes, Bigfoot, zombies, writing, publishing, Canadian comic cons, and more. I also disclosed my number one piece of publishing advice for anyone looking to find success in this biz and, it seems, one that’s often overlooked.

The recorded video is embedded below. Please take a moment to check it out, or push play and let it air in the background as you go about your Web surfing.

Thanks.

Spent the past while transferring over all the self-publishing, publishing and writing-related info from this site over to a new one to keep it all together/niche market it. It’s called How to Self-publish Books and Comics the Right Way: The Rantings and Ravings of a Veteran Self-publisher.

The site, a work-in-progress by it’s very nature, was set up because having been a do-it-yourselfer for so, so long, it bothers me that there’s a ton of misinformation about self-publishing floating around and writers are finding themselves trapped, confused, scared . . . well, you get the idea.

It’s time to set the record straight and so a new website is born.

I’ll post a link on this site when a new article goes up over there to keep you updated.

If you know of anyone who would benefit from How to Self-publish Books and Comics the Right Way, please send them over there and have them bookmark it. It is, and is going to be, a valuable resource, especially in this day and age when the information about publishing your own work can be so confusing.

Thanks. God bless.

Last night close to 11pm, I finished the first draft of the third full-length Axiom-man novel, City of Ruin. This now brings his book total to five. First draft clocked in at approx. 61,000 words. I started getting back into it on August 16 and maybe put in around 3,000 words over the following three days, so last Monday, when I decided to get hardcore into it and finish the thing, the amount of work already done on the book was around 15-16,000 words, which means that since last Monday to last night–with last Tuesday and Sunday off–I was able to pull off roughly 45,000 words in 5 days. Not bad. My math could be slightly off, but it’s over 40,000 for sure.

Anyway, the point is, this is the shortest amount of time I’ve taken to write a book, the runner-up now being April under my pseudonym Peter Fox. If memory serves, I did that book in about a week back in 2002. I think A Red Dark Night is the next shortest. 2 weeks to write that one sounds about right.

Doesn’t matter. It’s not about speed and at no time over the past week did I go, “Okay, I have to write so I’ll just writing something because I have to write something.” Instead, I was fully immersed in the story, lost in Axiom-man’s world of Good vs Evil and superpowers. Inspired by Brian Keene and Carlton Mellick III in terms of just going hardcore and banging the book out, I got the job done without sacrificing quality. All that’s left to do is drafts 2 and 3 then the book goes off to my editor for stuff I missed.

Besides, I read in an issue in Alan Moore’s Dodgem Logic that back in the pulp age of fiction, it was not uncommon for writers to pound out a 40,000-word book in a week to keep up with a crazy publishing schedule of getting stories to readers frequently.

I’m taking today off in terms of writing and am handling business duties. Tomorrow I go head first into finishing Redemption of the Dead, which I believe sits at around 3-4,000 words at the moment. It’ll be 75-80,000 when done. I have about two weeks to crank that one out, or 12 days as I don’t work Sundays.

Let the madness continue!

I’m nearly 30,000 words in to the new Axiom-man novel, which means I’m almost halfway done as I see this book being about as long as the first one. My mission is to do about 4,000 words a day on it so I can ensure it’s done for C4 this year, which is the first weekend of November. Readers have been asking year after year for a new Axiom-man book, the last being in 2008, which was a pathetically long time ago. Anyway, you will get your wish and City of Ruin will be ready. You’ll also really enjoy it, I think, as the storyline heads in a new direction and a new secret villain is introduced.

I’m also finishing up my Undead World Trilogy simultaneously with the third book titled–as of now–Redemption of the Dead. This is also aimed at being written at 4,000 words a day and will be 75-80,000 words when done and, hopefully, ready to debut at C4 this year as well.

I’m behind in writing all this because of my burn out earlier this year, publishing company duties and a venture into comics. Regardless, and as personally stretching at it is, working like a dog on these two books at the same time–the first time I’ve ever done that–is proving to be very healthy for my own mental well-being. I need to dive into complete and utter fantasy where that’s my whole reality every now and then to help keep my brain from going into overdrive with story ideas. All I’m living right now is superheroes and zombies, angels and demons. But if all stays on track, the crazy workload will alleviate in about a week as City of Ruin will be done–first draft, anyway–and then I can pound out the rest of Redemption of the Dead and just focus on finishing that. After that, then the books hit the editing phase, etc.

These books are important to my readers so I want them to be happy. They are also important to my family’s well-being as C4 is a big weekend for us on a success level and the proceeds from that helps keep my family afloat for a month or two following.

If you’d like to get caught up on both The Axiom-man Saga and the Undead World Trilogy, there are links on either side of this column for both eBook and paperback editions of each. Thank you in advance for your support and for helping me provide for my family. God bless.

June 4, 2006

Dear Dave:

This is the second time I’ve apologized to you for my tardy reply. I got your letter beginning of April but with tax season demands, looming deadlines and my recent business trip to Florida (of which I just returned from), I wasn’t able to write to you. Have you been to Florida? Aside from the business aspect of my trip, I was also there for pleasure. The major highlight was Universal Studios, namely Islands of Adventure featuring a plethora of Marvel characters and, best of all, an incredible (or should I say amazing) Spider-man ride. You might enjoy something like that if you haven’t done so already.

So, on to our discussion.

Regarding objective standards for continuity in any given manuscript, there has to be some measure of which to adhere to. What I mean is basic commonsense “rules” that apply to any story. I may have mentioned it before as an example, maybe not, but one would be your main character’s hair color should remain the same throughout the entire book unless you specifically state he/she took the time to dye their hair. Or, you can’t have one guy start off as African American (Canadian?) and then turn Caucasian halfway through. Or if you make it clear Character Joe needs to get to Hotel A to solve his crime but then have him go to 7-11 to solve it there without mentioning why 7-11 was a suitable substitute or ever mentioning Hotel A again, it’ll cause a problem. That’s the continuity stuff I was referring to. Just basic things.

On the abortion issue, in short, whatever the jurisdictional rules are regarding having an abortion, they would need to apply to all jurisdictions in the province otherwise it would open doors to the gray issues again, which could lead us right back to where we started from. Your rules in Kitchener-Centre are the most rigid I’ve heard of, and of which I side with. (Though on a personal note I’m against abortion regardless of the circumstance leading up to it; after all, adoption once the baby is born is a possibility.) To be frank, I don’t know if we’ll be able to continue this “debate” based on that because killing is killing no matter which way you slice it. I don’t think I’m trying to reclaim the moral high ground (I freely admit I’m far from perfect) in comparing abortion to murder or drawing lines between the two. It’s more just me calling a spade a spade. Whether it’s abortion or the intentional pulling of a trigger, the result is the same: loss of life. One has taken the initiative to deny a human being their existence whether just a baby or a full grown person. Who are we to decide who lives and who dies? Who or what gives us that power? My original intent in writing you was not to get into any heated debate (I don’t think we’re at that point at present) but if this abortion discussion will take us down that road, then I politely withdraw from it and we can move on to something else. So that said, in summary, yeah, the jurisdictional approach would be best provided all jurisdictions are on the same page. I like the idea that if you had sex, had an unwanted pregnancy, now it’s your problem not society’s. That I agree with because, to me, it seems far too many folks (at least here in Winnipeg) dump their issues on “society” versus taking responsibility for them themselves. And that’s one of the things it really comes down to in the end when it comes to this thing called life: taking responsibility for one’s actions. Too many people are passing the buck and pointing fingers instead of raising their hand and saying, “Yup, that was me and here’s what I’m going to do to fix it.”

The idea for the Cerebus e-volumes was just that–an idea.

Opening the book of another discussion, I know the story of how Cerebus came to be so I won’t ask you to repeat it. However, I was wondering what prompted you to self-publish it instead of trying to sell a publishing firm on the idea? I always enjoy hearing the motives behind a self-publisher’s ventures. For myself, it was the age-old thing of being unable to sell my first manuscript, which led to my originally being duped by a vanity press. But after that, I took control, started the company and went from there. Since then I’ve found the experience rewarding despite some of the more trying days. The knowledge and experience gained is something you can’t buy nor learn from reading a how-to book on the subject.

Thank you for taking the time to reply to my letters. It’s always good to find a reply from you waiting in my mailbox.

I wish you all the best, Dave. I look forward to your reply.

Sincerely,

Regular visitors of this site know that since about mid March I’ve been running the new Axiom-man comic book as a webcomic over at www.axiom-man.com

The idea of offering the comic free is to help increase public awareness of the character, and also tell a serious superhero story via the Web as I’ve read elsewhere that a serious superhero webcomic is hard to find.

At the same the webcomic runs–twice a week: Monday and Thursday–the book is also released more or less monthly as both a print comic and a downloadable digital one.

The hard reality of the current print comic climate is that, unlike the glory days of the late ’80s and ’90s, and even up until a few years back, the comic book shop market for indie comics has shrunk so considerably that they are extremely hard to find. Even some stores, as per the comment section of Terry Moore’s blog a while back, don’t even carry his stuff, and he’s right up there in terms of indie comic successes. Making things worse, Diamond Distributors, the only game in town to get your stuff into comic shops–again, unlike the glory days of the ’80s and ’90s–has raised the bar in terms of how much money your book has to bring in as a gross each month. Currently it’s at about $2500 and as per this report, which makes it about 1,667 orders needed to hit that number. Sure, if you’re a big name already, you’ll probably pull this off. If not and are unknown to the comic field like myself, then, well, have fun. Likewise, you have to keep that sales level at least at that amount to keep being listed month-to-month. Since–not always, though–a monthly series’ readership falls each month, again you have a major issue.

Yet there are so many creators out there who want to make comics for a living and not just as a hobby. My current challenge to myself is: can it be possible to carve out a sustainable comic book career, one that provides for oneself and family in today’s market?

Is it really Diamond or bust?

I love a challenge. In fact, my entire literary career is built on that. I’ve fought tooth and nail to make a career out of writing and publishing books. Even been homeless once. I’ve also lived in major poverty where my wife and I had no food in the house aside from a can of soup and no money for groceries. My folks would drop off a loaf of bread and other small items to see us through until the next maternity leave check came in. Hard times, but during those hard times, I was paving a road and laying the foundation for what would later be a career in publishing and being able to support my family with it. The price was a ton of sacrifice, hard work, no sleep, ridicule, condecension, financial uncertainty, and a whole other mess of stuff that could be an entire blog entry on its own.

So . . . that said, let’s get back to making a living doing comics. Is it possible nowadays? Especially if you’re a nobody in the field and have zero “name weight” to throw around?

I think there is. I also have zero data to back up this theory/ideal, but if I have learned one thing duking it out to have a creative career, is that, as Marty McFly said, “If you put your mind to it, you can accomplish anything.” This includes comics.

Quick side note: I refuse to take all the credit for my current career. I thank Jesus Christ first and foremost for being blessed enough to have such a career. I also thank the support of my wife and others.

If you talked to a marketing guru and asked how to be successful–in any field where something is manufactured–they’d tell you to “find out what people want, make it, then sell it to them.”

Makes sense.

But if you’re an artist–and without sounding pretentious as all get out–sure, you can make what people want, but the final product wouldn’t be as good as making what you want. So then the question becomes personal and you have to decide whether you’re going to go short or long term for other folks’ desires, or for your own.

After having done both, I’m sticking with the latter. If my heart and soul is going to go into a project, I better be passionate about it. I remember something Kevin Smith said a long time ago, something along the lines of, “If I like what I write, then odds are there is someone else out there like me who’ll like it, too.” Good advice. Of course, how many people are “like you” varies. (Actually, who else out there is like Kevin Smith?)

My new comic series, Axiom-man, is part of my life’s work, that is, when I leave this planet, I want a giant saga about a superhero to be left behind, one encompassing books, comics, audio books, etc., all done by a single creator. I also want this work to be true to the vision I have for it, which is not quite your usual superhero fanfare. The Axiom-man Saga, though chock full of superhero action, is also a life-and-times piece and chronicles the life of a superhero starting from when he first donned the tights at age 24. There’s drama, some of the daily mundane, introspection, romance, superpowers, and a pile of other stuff (including what it’s like to fly all the way down from Canada to Florida when you’re top flight speed is about 60km an hour).

The books are like that and I want the comics to be like that, too. I’m also taking a huge risk in the comic’s presentation since I’m heavily inspired by indie comics, namely independent, black-and-white books. The Axiom-man series is in black-and-white with a hand-colored cover. No digital. The inside has a touch of digital here and there, but nothing super fancy as I personally find today’s digitally-colored comics distracting and the overuse of gradients and effects dragging down the original artwork.

A black-and-white superhero book? Are you crazy? Well, maybe a little, depending who you talk to. So far as I know, Axiom-man is the first single-creator, long-term comics narrative done in black-and-white, and also the only one done by one creator. Not only is this cost-effective, but it’s also a smart choice in making the book stand apart. Of course, for some superhero readers, it might take some getting used to.

Anyway…

Below are some numbers and figures regarding the first issue. Though a monthly book, the figures below cover the first issue since its first page aired on the Web to its last page, cover-to-cover.

Webstats: 1,100 (equaling an average of 11.34 hits per day. Since my counter doesn’t tell me which are unique hits, let’s just assume that each repeat visit was by the same person.)

Money out: $416.59 (print costs, taxes paid not included in this total)

Money in: $33.30 (sales income, taxes collected not included in this total)

Profit: – $383.29

It’s a decent chunk of change to be in the hole, but the good news is a) the comic is still for sale and will move copies (I’m fairly well-known at C4 Comic Con), and it’s also available in digital via Kindle and that will be one sale perpetually b) I’m used to thinking longterm for this business. I’m also encouraged by what Dave Sim said when he talked about the early days of Cerebus. He said for the first couple years on the book, he would have made more money babysitting.

Comics is a marathon, especially when you’re an unknown comics creator jumping into the water.

Take the above as you will, but I thought it’d be fun to share this journey with you.

If you would like to help turn that negative number into a positive, Axiom-man No. 1 is available in both print and eComic through multiple venues. Please see the comic book store here for details and issue summary. Info on the second issue is also there. Thanks in advance for your support.

Feel free to sound off in the comments below. Perhaps we can all learn something from each other.

Coscom Entertainment and Torn Veil Books pretty much are one-man operations. My wife helps me out now and then–mailing stuff, helping at comic con–but doesn’t work for me directly nor spends her days by my side as I write, edit and package stories for you guys.

This year she might be joining the Fuchs publishing team–is it a “team” if it’s just one person? har har–and taking on some duties that take me away from making books and comics. So that’s what she and I are doing this afternoon: I’m training her on some bookkeeping so that, down the road, it’ll be something I don’t have to worry about. This is ultra exciting for me because, though I spend most of my time publishing others, I’m also a creator myself and have that burning desire within to get my ideas out on paper lest I go crazy. By my wife helping out, this will allow me more creative free time and allow me to write more books and draw more comics.

These are the current changes happening behind-the-scenes here at Fuchs Central, changes that I’m confident will lead to stronger and more successful publishing companies. But, of course, those who ultimately make or break us will be you guys. We hope you continue to support with us as we provide you with solid literary entertainment going into the New Year and beyond.

On the 5th of January, I put my book, Zombie Fight Night: Battles of the Dead, up for free at Amazon after joining their Amazon Exclusive program. Right now, the book is still free even though it was meant to be a five-day promotion, which should have ended yesterday. Perhaps they’re keeping it free and will eat the cost of paying me from today onward? Or maybe it’s just free and I won’t make anything. Regardless, I don’t mind it being free right now as, to me, it’s one of the geekiest and coolest books I’ve ever written and I simply want to share it with people. If you as a reader want to support my work–I do feed my family off my publishing–then by all means please check out the Kindle books on the left of this page, or the paperback versions on the right. Thanks, if you do.

Since the 5th, and as of 1:07CST today, Zombie Fight Night has been downloaded 1377 times across all Amazon platforms. Not bad at all. I’ll have to see how the free thing goes behind-the-scenes and if Amazon’ll start charging for it or if I’ll have to manually do something. Regardless, now’s a great time to get a couple free books from me, no strings attached.

What’s the other free book? It’s book one of my Paranormal Romance series, Blood of my World, called Discovery of Death. Memories of Death and Life of Death are the sequels. Discovery of Death became a freebie in September of 2011 and has been downloaded 15,976 times, and that’s on Kindle only never mind Nook, iPad, etc. I plan on keeping it free for now as it’s helped move copies of its sequels.

Here’s the point: I’m fortunate to have been writing long enough to have enough of a backlist that I can put books up for free while still earning a living off the other ones. Ever since I started writing, money has never been a motivator. The only “motivation” dollar-wise was to be able to make enough to live on so I can write and publish fulltime. Also, by having a large backlist, this enables me to conduct these experiments without taking too much of a hit or any at all. Like I posted last time, I try these things out on myself first before considering adopting it as part of my business model for those I publish so as to ensure it’s worth doing so on the money front. To short change an author with their own work . . . yeesh. No, thanks.

Will the risk of offering Zombie Fight Night for free pay off, or will it be a loss monetarily but a gain readership-wise? Time will tell. Watch this space.

I’m conducting a publishing experiment with Zombie Fight Night: Battles of the Dead and between now and the 9th–the 9th being the last day–it will be free on Amazon Kindle. And it is also only available on Amazon Kindle as I hooked up to their exclusive program for this eBook.

As both an artist and publisher, I need to find good ways to promote not just myself but also my authors. However, to suddenly take all the books I’m responsible for and do a campaign like this one, which is essentially a gamble, it would be unfair to take away 5 days’ worth of royalties from my authors without knowing if it’s to their benefit in the long run.

Anyway, I just got online now after being offline all day and at about 5:30PM CST, my Kindle rank in the free store for Zombie Fight Night is #604. That’s pretty good considering I haven’t promoted anything yet. Can we hit #1? I don’t know, but you’re more than welcome to help by clicking on the book cover above and downloading a copy. It’s free, and will only take you around 30 seconds. If you don’t have a Kindle, then a whole host of free apps are available here for your iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, PC, etc.

Here’s the story:

In 2027 A.D., the Zombie Apocalypse took the world by storm and no one was prepared. Countless lives were lost as humanity battled to regain control of their planet. Eventually, they did, and out of the ashes of fallen civilization rose a new world, one bent on revenge against the hordes of the undead that took everything from them.

Enter Tony Sterpanko, entrepreneur extraordinaire who found a way to capitalize on humanity’s thirst for vengeance against the zombie. He created Zombie Fight Night, a worldwide craze where the undead men and women who remained from the apocalypse faced off against people and beings that once existed on Earth or were existing for the first time.

It is ten years later and at Blood Bay Arena, fortunes are won and lost. Men are made millionaires over night. Others are not so lucky and find themselves broken and destitute.

Mick Chelsey is one such man: gambling addict, lousy husband and Zombie Fight Night fanatic.

Except now, in order to still watch the fights and try to win back all he’s lost, he needs to bet fast and big otherwise death will come for him.

Let the battles begin.

Zombies fight Bigfoot, werewolves, vampires, Axiom-man, Bruce Lee, samurai, kickboxers, robots and more in this ode to blood-and-guts action from Blood of the Dead author, A.P. Fuchs.

You ready to get it on?

I now present to you what I think is one of the most coolest books of my career, Zombie Fight Night: Battles of the Dead, for free.

Enjoy, and thanks for downloading.