CANR
WORK TITLE: The Screaming Skull
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE: https://phabulousity.com/
CITY: Cincinnati
STATE:
COUNTRY: United States
NATIONALITY: American
LAST VOLUME:
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Married; wife’s name Allison; children: Ian.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Author, marketing expert. As a marketing expert, has made appearances on MSNBC and Fox Business Channel, and interviewed in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and many other newspapers internationally. Delivered keynote speeces on marketing principles and best practices on six continents.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
Rick Ferguson is the author of the 2018 novel, The Screaming Skull, first in a proposed “heavy metal” fantasy trilogy. Ferguson is also a globally recognized marketing expert. Ferguson’s self-published debut is both a tip of the hat to high fantasy and also a subtle satire of that genre.
In an interview in the Kenton County Public Library website, Ferguson commented on why he chose to self-publish his novel rather than follow a more traditional route to publication: “For me, the choice to self-publish was a no-brainer. To go the ‘trad’ publishing route would have required: six months to a year to find an agent (that’s if you survive dozens of rejections); six months to a year for the agent to find a publisher (that’s if you survive another several dozen rejections); and six months to a year before the publisher brought the book to market. That’s an 18-month to three-year process to trad-publish versus four months to self-publish and get the book immediately into the hands of readers.”
In The Screaming Skull, King Elberon is lord of the Tradewind Isles and is on the eve of his sixty-fifth birthday. The foul-mouthed king finds himself caught between two conflicting prophecies. One has him living another sixty-five years but in ever-declining health, while the other has the world ending on his sixty-fifth birthday. Neither are particularly attractive to Elberon, who, caught in this quandary, begins to reflect on his illustrious past and rise to power, accompanied by the Screaming Skull that periodically calls up leagues of monsters who try to destroy him. Now Elberon is locked in a final and glorious battle against the Deathless One.
A Kirkus Reviews critic had praise for The Screaming Skull, noting: “Readers will likely return for the sequel, perhaps more for the king’s unpredictable narration than the plot itself. A joyously coarse and self-aware epic fantasy.” A Publishers Weekly contributor similarly offered a positive assessment, terming the novel a “wildly original debut.” The contributor added: “Ferguson’s biting wit, over-the-top plot, and relentless meta commentary will have readers laughing and groaning in equal measure.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, February 15, 2019, review of The Screaming Skull.
Publishers Weekly, October 14, 2019, review of The Screaming Skull, p. 51.
ONLINE
Kenton County Public Library, https://www.kentonlibrary.org/ (December 14, 2019), “Rick Ferguson.”
Phabulousity, https://phabulousity.com/ (December 14, 2019), “Rick Ferguson.”
Rick Ferguson is a globally recognized marketing expert with appearances in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, Advertising Age, Fast Company, the Globe & Mail in Canada, the Guardian in the United Kingdom, the Financial Times in India, MSNBC, and the Fox Business Channel. He has delivered keynote speeches on marketing principles and best practices on six continents. He is also a master of time, space, and dimension. He lives in Cincinnati, Ohio with his wife Allison, son Ian, and cat Penny.
Rick writes fantasy fiction inspired by classics of the genre as well as by absurdist and post-modern authors such as Kurt Vonnegut, Joseph Heller, and Tom Robbins. When he's not writing, you can find him raging Page-side at a Phish concert, hiking in the wilderness with his family, or at the local dive bar.
Connect with him via his website at www.phabulousity.com, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/RickFergusonAuthor/ and on Twitter @phabulous65.
Recently I sat down and talked with long time friend and first time fiction author Rick Ferguson about his experiences self-publishing his fantasy novel “The Screaming Skull”. If you are considering a foray into self-publishing his answers may help you find your way.
Q: Why self-publish over sending the book out to publishers?
A: For me, the choice to self-publish was a no-brainer. To go the “trad” publishing route would have required: six months to a year to find an agent (that’s if you survive dozens of rejections); six months to a year for the agent to find a publisher (that’s if you survive another several dozen rejections); and six months to a year before the publisher brought the book to market. That’s an 18-month to three-year process to trad-publish versus four months to self-publish and get the book immediately into the hands of readers. In addition, the publisher would most likely have required multiple changes to the book, would have allowed me no control over the cover or blurb, and would have offered me a 15% royalty rate vs. the 70% royalty rate I enjoy through self-publishing. Trad publishers no longer market your book for you but expect you to market your book yourself–and they’re unlikely to even give you that opportunity unless you already have an established audience via another platform. The only advantage left to trad-publishing is the opportunity to get your book into brick-and-mortar bookstores–where it would compete for shelf-space with already established authors.
There are really only two disadvantages to self-publishing. One, you’re attempting to stand out in a market flooded with inferior product. Trad-publishers serve the “gatekeeper” role to ensure only quality books get published; in the indie market, there are a lot of bad books out there. Two, self-publishing requires you to be a small businessperson as well as an author. You’re responsible for both the expense and effort required to produce, distribute, and market your books, so you really have to adopt the mindset that you’re running a business. So, if all you want to do is write and leave the business stuff to someone else, then trad-publishing is certainly more appealing. With my business and marketing background, however, I was excited by rather than afraid of that challenge.
Q: As a published author in marketing did you consider trying to use contacts in that field to contact publishers?
A: If I had written a business or marketing book, then I certainly would have gone the traditional publishing route, as I have a well-established reputation as a marketing thought leader. For fiction writing, that advantage kind of disappears. No one reading my fiction cares about my business background; they only want to read an entertaining book.
Q: How did you go about finding your illustrator?
A: I found my illustrator online, and I got lucky because he was the first and only illustrator I talked to. As soon as I saw his work, I knew he was the right artist. I was fortunate enough to find him available and willing to work for a reasonable fee!
Q: Did you self-edit, or farm the editing out to people?
A: There are roughly three stages involved in the editing process. First comes “developmental” editing, where an editor looks at the structure of the book, decides what’s working and what’s not working, and recommends major changes to the material. Next comes copy editing, in which an editor looks for grammatical errors and consistency, continuity errors, and conciseness of language. Last comes proof-reading, where an editor looks for typos, spelling errors, and style errors. Some writers pay editors for all three steps, but that can get prohibitively expensive. I’m a good self-editor, so I handled the first two steps myself and paid someone to proof-read. No one person can ever catch every error in the manuscript, so it’s important to have another editor review your manuscript before you publish it.
Q: Are there lots of choices for potential self-publishers to work with? How did you go about choosing Amazon?
A: No indie author can hope to find an audience without Amazon; they offer far and away the largest global market to find readers. The big question for indie authors is whether to go “exclusive” with Amazon or go “wide” by also publishing on Apple iBooks, Kobo (Canada’s largest online bookseller) and other distributors. Going exclusive with Amazon allows you to get your book into the Kindle Select Program and offer it through Prime Reading and the Kindle Lending Library–but to participate in those programs, you must be exclusive to Amazon and not offer your book anywhere else. For me as a new, unknown author, going exclusive to Amazon initially made sense as a good way to provide a “frictionless” method for readers to find me. For the second and third books in my series, I’ll most likely go wide with them.
Q: What were the steps you had to take in order to publish with them? Did they have restrictions on content, length, etc.?
A: Publishing through Kindle on Amazon is relatively easy, with no restrictions on what you publish. There are production hoops through which you must jump: Your manuscript must be formatted appropriately, and for print books it can be tricky to get them to accept your cover image without several rounds of tweaking. Fortunately, there are several good online self-publishing groups that offer advice and counseling for new authors trying to navigate the process.
Q: Does Amazon let you promote your book on the site? Do you get to submit the description, genre, key search terms, etc.?
A: Yes, you are in control of your book description, what categories under which your book appears, and under what keywords you hope to be found. There is a helpful software program used by most indie authors that helps you find “under-served” categories and keywords through which you can be discovered by readers. For example, my book was written to appeal to players of role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons, so I chose to add my book to “fantasy role-playing games” categories on Amazon. We’ll see how that works for me!
Q: You mentioned that it can be a free download on some e-readers? How does that work? How hard was it to get it available on those sites?
A: The most important marketing tool for indie authors is an email list of people interested in your stuff. There are several indie-author promotional sites out there that allow you to offer your book for free in exchange for someone joining your email list. Most of them charge a fee, but it’s a great way for an unknown author to build an audience.
Q: What kind of “out of pocket” costs might one expect to incur if they decide to self-publish?
A: The big danger for new indie authors is that there are a lot of predators out there willing to take advantage of your desire to publish. That means one provider might charge three times as much as another provider for the same service. Or they might offer “one stop shopping” and provide editing, production, and marketing services for a hefty fee, much more than you really need to pay. Fortunately, there’s an indie author group called The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLIE for short) that provides a watchdog service for authors so they don’t get burned.
If you do everything yourself: all editing, use free online tools to create your cover, and format yourself, you can publish your book for next to nothing. Most indie authors do pay for copy-editing, proofreading, and cover design, and those costs can run around $2,000 for an average novel. I also invested in some start-up costs to set myself up for future success: I paid for a web site designer, and I invested in some self-publishing courses to help me learn the nuts and bolts of book production and marketing. So all-in, I’ve invested around $5,000 to launch my self-publishing business. I probably won’t recoup those costs until I get all three books in my series published. I will also be investing in some targeted ads on Amazon and Facebook, but not until the second book is published.
There is a “formula” that a lot of indie authors use as a mantra of sorts; the formula is “Ten books to $50K.” The idea is that, once you have an established back catalog of ten books in the marketplace–and if your books find an audience–then you can start making some decent cash. Maybe not enough to quit your day job, but enough for your writing habit to qualify as a profitable side-hustle. I’m fortunate in that I made enough money in my business career that I can now devote full time to my new writing career. Most writers don’t have that luxury, so it becomes a matter of plugging away until you break through. If you’re good enough and your stuff makes a mark, then the sky’s the limit!
Q: Book one is said to be the first of three books in the series, do you plan on making the other works using the same process? What is your timetable for those books?
A: Yes, I will absolutely be publishing the next two books in the series via the indie-author playbook. Book Two will come out in the fall of 2019, and Book Three in the summer of 2020!
Q: What mistakes do you think you might be able to avoid, if any, the second time around?
A: I probably published my first book too soon. It’s very difficult to get any traction in the marketplace with only a single book; the idea is to build a catalog so you can, for example, make the first book in your series free to hook readers and sell them through to the other books. It might have been better to wait until I had all three books written before publishing. I had personal reasons for wanting to get this first book published, however, and doing so has been a valuable learning process. For future book series, I’ll most likely have at least two books in the series written before I publish them.
QUOTE:
wildly original debut
Ferguson's biting wit, over-the-top plot, and relentless meta commentary will have readers laughing and groaning in equal measure.
The Screaming Skull
Rick Ferguson. Phabulousity Press, $14.99 trade paper (476p) ISBN 978-1-7325662-1-7
Ferguson's wildly original debut, the first in the Chronicles of Elberon series, plays fast and loose with literary convention in a self-aware whirlwind of epic fantasy tropes and absurdist humor. Elberon, a foulmouthed 64-year-old former adventurer, is now King of the Tradewind Isles and finds himself caught between two prophecies of the future: one in which he lives another 65 years in deteriorating health and another in which the world ends at the hands of one of his former compatriots on the day of his 65th birthday. Both strike him as horrific. The nonlinear narrative jumps between the present and Elberon's checkered past, recounting his rise to power and loopy adventures through the Multiverse, armed with a screaming skull that may be one of the magical Phylaxes of Koschei the Deathless, a figure compared to "Sauron, Voldemort, Lord Foul, Thulsa Doom, or Vladimir Putin." Ferguson pays irreverent homage to classic fantasies, mythology, and video games throughout as Elberon's adventuring party grows and he rises to power. Ferguson's biting wit, over-the-top plot, and relentless meta commentary will have readers laughing and groaning in equal measure. (Self-published.)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"The Screaming Skull." Publishers Weekly, 14 Oct. 2019, p. 51. Gale General OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A603318993/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=6e46259d. Accessed 5 Dec. 2019.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A603318993
QUOTE:
Readers will likely return for the sequel, perhaps more for the king's unpredictable narration than the plot itself. A joyously coarse and self-aware epic fantasy.
Ferguson, Rick THE SCREAMING SKULL Phabulousity Press (Indie Fiction) $14.99 11, 12 ISBN: 978-1-73256-621-7
In this debut novel, a so-called royal hero reflects on his life as upheaval awaits on the horizon. King Elberon, lord of the Tradewind Isles, is about to turn 65 years old. He's led an illustrious life of adventure and just learned from his friend Wilberd, who glanced through the Astral Telescope at the monarch's future, that he'll live to be 130. Yet Elberon thinks mainly of the companions who'll attend his birthday party in nine days, including the warrior Amabored and his former love Melinda the Blade. "When I finally get them all together," he thinks, "I'm going to kill every last one of them." He then begins detailing his youth among the Free Kingdoms of the Woerth and even the Multiverse after he told his father, King Olderon, that he wanted to visit Redhauke, a cosmopolitan city ripe with crime and opportunity. There, he met Amabored, the elf Lithaine, and the mage Redulfo. Given additional strength by the Girdle of Gargantua, Elberon joined the trio, and they became guards for Saggon, Over-Boss of the Thieves Guild. But Saggon's shipments of pipeweed contained a secret over which Melinda battled the group. During this time, Elberon first encountered the Screaming Skull (when Melinda attacked him with it) and became embroiled in closing the Hellmouth beneath the Blue Falcon Inn. Later, he drank a concoction called the Flaming Telepath, which brought him to the First Universe and a meeting with Jo Ki-Rin, a chimerical creature who warned that Elberon must accept a quest to save all of creation. The "monomyth" at the core of Ferguson's series opener is the same one that fuels innumerable fantasies, from Tolkien's work to the Star Wars series. The winning difference here is the author's tone, which would make the foulmouthed, fourth wall-smashing Marvel character Deadpool proud. Elberon calls Woerth a "chamber pot of competing cultures and religions from dozens of different universes." This gives the author the widest possible canvas on which to scribble his own multicolored brand of mayhem--and the narrative leeway to quote Pulp Fiction. He discusses not only the Multiverse, wherein, most likely, "some pimply teenaged loser sits in his parents' basement drawing" dungeons "on graph paper and randomly inserting monsters, traps, and treasure," but also author Michael Moorcock, who deals vibrantly with alternate realities in his Elric series. Even Ferguson's key villain, Koscheis, has echoes in "Sauron, Voldemort, Lord Foul...or Vladimir Putin." This isn't to say that the story is complete silliness. The prose frequently lets rip some epic imagery, as when "a house-sized mushroom cloud of napalm condensed out of the atmosphere, balled itself up into a miniature sun, and surged forth with a massive sonic boom." And while the main characters riff humorously on archetypes--and the minor ones mock everything else (Father Frito of Lay, for example)--they experience events deeply. Elberon's regret over cheating on average Melinda with gorgeous Cassiopeia brings humanity to a cavalcade of gonzo exploits. Readers will likely return for the sequel, perhaps more for the king's unpredictable narration than the plot itself. A joyously coarse and self-aware epic fantasy.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Ferguson, Rick: THE SCREAMING SKULL." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Feb. 2019. Gale General OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A573768656/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=ITOF&xid=c6d50fb0. Accessed 5 Dec. 2019.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A573768656