So I finally got around to catching IRON MAN last night. I went in with my expectations in check. Seems most everyone who’s seen it and blogged about it, raved how good it was and how it was up there with SPIDER-MAN 2 and the last BATMAN movie as one of the best superhero movies. Not that that is saying a lot considering there’s been far more crappy superhero movies than good ones. But anyway.

Despite the lackluster fight at the end, it wasn’t half bad. The movie obviously wouldn’t be nearly as good as it is if it wasn’t for not only Robert Downey Jr. but also Jeff Bridges. Those two took it from a mediocre action movie to one of the better movies of the year. Just too bad they didn’t have Bridges play a character based on the Mandarin villain. Now that would’ve been pretty interesting.

I just hope in the sequels to come, they bring in some of the old villains from the Iron Man series. But I kinda have a sneaking suspicion the bad guys will be more terrorist or technology-based which could be a mistake. Only time will tell.

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So I finally got a notebook computer not too long ago. Noticed I didn’t include “new” in there? It’s a Dell Latitude LS which originally came out close to a decade ago. Someone local was selling it for $100 bucks. I’ve been wanting to get a basic, no thrills notebook just for working on the road / living room for a while now.

The only draw back was it came with no battery. But I did a search online before buying it and they are relatively cheap. So now I’m in the process of getting the mofo set up for work. I was hoping to connect it via a USB cable to my main computer here but I didn’t have a USB cable which had the same connectors on both ends. A trip to the local Staples didn’t help. So after some further googling, I found out I can use an ethernet cable to create a LAN between my hub and the two computers.

So that’s my adventure for today.

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Time to give this another spin. Been super-busy between the last post and this one. But I plan on making the time to post here. With that said, I’m going to finish getting this baby setup and ready for action.

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Came across an interesting thread on the Panel and Pixel forum where publisher Scott Bieser asks why his company’s first graphic novel, THE ARCHITECT, failed to garner a high number of pre-orders.

He posted a list of different marketing tactics he used to market the book apparently to no avail. With SMUGGLING SPIRITS: BOOK ONE available for pre-order in December’s PREVIEWS catalogue, I can’t help but feel for Scott and his disappointment. It would be disheartening- not to mention irritating- to put so much time, money, and effort into promoting your baby only for it to result in such dismal numbers.

People who chimed in on the thread suggested pricing ($9.95 for 80 pages) and lack of promotion on forums and such when the book was available for pre-ordering as reasons why orders might have been so low. Scott did purchase banner ads on some of the bigger comic news sites which makes me wonder if such advertising is really worth it when you are trying to get people to pre-order or even buy your book. Maybe it is better to use banner ads to just burn your company’s name and/or book in people’s minds.

Technorati Tags: SMUGGLING SPIRITS, graphic novel, Diamond

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After posting today’s serial update bulletins, I jumped right into creating more eBooks which is a very time consuming job. It took me close to 3 hours just to create 4 of them. Ouch. Maybe there’s a faster way of doing it that I am unaware of.

During a break, I thought I would check amazon.com to see if CLOCKWORK CREATURE: CHAPTER ONE was listed there yet- and it is! You can check it out here.

Now I have to figure out how to add cover images and such to make the listing standout.

Technorati Tags: Amazon, CLOCKWORK CREATURE: CHAPTER ONE, eBooks

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When it rains, it pours. Received an email this weekend from Dave at the Broken Frontier comic site regarding his positive reviews of CLOCKWORK CREATURE, SMUGGLING SPIRITS, and THEY DO NOT DIE!. He also included his thoughts on Ambrosia Publishing as a company which compared it to Oni Press, Vertigo, and some other respectable publishers / line of comics. It’s always good to read such positive thoughts about your company.

And if that wasn’t enough, I received another email this time from someone at a CBC-affiliated radio station in a city close to here which would like to do a phone interview tomorrow regarding the company and the pay-what-you-want option. Much like the newspaper article about Ambrosia Publishing a week or so ago, I don’t expect any sales to come from it. But I am hoping the radio interview will lead to bigger things in regards to marketing the business. It definitely won’t hurt.

Technorati Tags: Ambrosia Publishing, CLOCKWORK CREATURE, SMUGGLING SPIRITS, THEY DO NOT DIE

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Got an early start today on things. I’ve got the serial update bulletins done already. And now it is on to working on creating bit torrent files for the books available through the Ambrosia Publishing Store. I plan on adding ads promoting Ambrosia Publishing and graphic novels available for purchase in the Ambrosia Publishing Store to each bit torrent.

With the torrents done and seeding (hopefully) for both CLOCKWORK CREATURE: CHAPTER ONE and SMUGGLING SPIRITS: BOOK ONE, it’s time to tackle the next submission to Diamond. If this one is accepted (the previous two were), then I will resubmit CLOCKWORK CREATURE: CHAPTER ONE to them again. It was turned down when I initially submitted it due to what Diamond felt was a ‘limited audience’ or something like that. With the book receiving some good reviews and the other Ambrosia books being picked-up, it would be a good time to resubmit it. I know it would’ve been picked-up if it was submitted by someone like Top Shelf or AdHouse but being an unknown publisher, well, you get the picture.

The interview I did with John over at Blog@Newsrama went up today. I hope I don’t piss any retailers or publishers off with my take on things. I doubt if I do since I’m new to the publishing game but you never know. And to wrap the week up, the Me Geek, You Geek podcast discusses the pay-what-you-want payment option offered at the Ambrosia Publishing Store.

Technorati Tags: Ambrosia Publishing, Ambrosia Publishing Store, Blog@Newsrama, Top Shelf, AdHouse, Me Geek You Geek, podcast

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Needing a break, I went and saw the new Russeull Crowe and Denzel Washington flick, AMERICAN GANGSTER. Having it set in my favorite decade, the 70s, and in one of my favorite genres, crime drama, already scored brownie points with me. It is definitely worth the praise the movie is receiving. This, MICHEAL CLAYTON, and 3:10 TO YUMA are my favorite flicks of the year so far. I’m sure I’m forgetting a couple of others but I can see those three being up for best picture at the end of the year.

After posting the serial update bulletins, I spent the rest of the morning catching up emails and a couple of other tasks.

I’m trying to schedule my days so that I focus on Ambrosia-related work in the morning, leaving the afternoon free for me to work on my own projects and practice drawing. Jason and I are chipping away at BEFORE DAWN 2 (I have the first six pages scripted). I tend to thumbnail pages before I script. As I do the thumbnails, I’ll write little bits of dialogue or notes on the page so that when I go to script, I can just put the bits-and-pieces together.

Besides BD 2, I’m also working on my own project, THE DEVIL’S TONGUE. For this project, I’m going to try my hand at illustrating it. This project is going to take a while because I am a sloooow artist. I’m learning on the job which doesn’t help. But I have wanted to get back into drawing for years now so it’s either put up or shut up.

Technorati Tags: AMERICAN GANGSTER, MICHAEL CLAYTON, BEFORE DAWN

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I’m finally able to make the time to take care of some jobs I’ve been putting off. One was creating a new Ambrosia Publishing Store banner to put on the Ambrosia Publishing site to promote the pay-what-you-want pricing. I finally got one done but the power went out for a second here, destroying my creation since I didn’t think to save my work while working on it. Happens to everyone but it f**king sucks when it does. So I had to redo everything I did, wasting time in the process. But at least it is done and up on the site.

Got some interview questions from John who writes for Blog@Newsrama yesterday evening. I always feel like a babbling idiot when I do interviews. I try to make what I say interesting and informative. I don’t know if I’m successful or not.

Technorati Tags: Ambrosia Publishing, Ambrosia Publishing Store, Blog@Newsrama

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Despite the whole time change this past weekend, I was able to get up early like I wanted. With everything I have going on with the publishing business and my own projects, I need to make the most of my time. So I’m aiming to get up before 7 AM Monday through Friday. I love being up early but I hate the process of getting up early like that.

Everything is going as scheduled today: posted the online serial update bulletins on MySpace and ComicSpace, and I just sent out the first SMUGGLING SPIRITS newsletter after doing a successful test run. I’ve had quite a number of people sign up for the newsletter which is a very good sign despite little mention of it on the bigger comic news sites and blogs (thanks again, guys!)

Technorati Tags: SMUGGLING SPIRITS

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