Piracy Is Not An Epidemic

Posted on September 7, 2013 by AngryGames

And let us take a moment to be completely realistic.

If one million pirated downloads of your book has occurred, yes, you could have lost one million sales. But come on…one million means you are EXTREMELY popular, and have more than likely sold a few million at Amazon and other outlets. And if you are that popular, you have publishers shoving contracts in your face, Hollywood bugging for the rights to your work for screenplays, conventions bugging you to attend, all sorts of other little perks and money-makers because…you are extremely popular.

Because there’s no one on this planet that has had their work downloaded one million times and is still a nobody, crying out in a lonely voice on the internet that he has nothing, barely any food to eat. If your name was “Game of Thrones – Season 3 – Episode 04” then you would be downloaded a million+ times, but you don’t see any of them (nor even HBO) making a fuss about it. HBO has even openly said they know their show(s) get pirated, and they really don’t care that much. Continue reading →

Believe In Yourself

Posted on September 2, 2013 by AngryGames

Right. So. I’ve spent the afternoon having an excellent conversation via Facebook chat with one of my readers. I hate calling them ‘fans’ as that sounds like I’m famous or important…and come on, we all know better than that. As the conversation went on, this nice young lady did a bit of a psych eval on me. I finally realized at some point that this was most likely because I am one of the most self-deprecating humans on the planet, and within seconds, another realization that to those that don’t know me, I probably seem like one of those types that truly is hateful of himself.

You know, the kind of Debbie Downer that makes everyone uncomfortable because when they say something like, “I suck”, everyone around them knows that the person indeed believes that he or she feels like a complete and total loser who has no value in life to themselves or to others around them.

The kind guy like me, who thought all through junior and senior high school my name was “Kill Yourself” because anytime someone said something to me, it always started with “Kill Yourself”.

So I decided I should write a new blog post to say a few things that I think are important. No, not about me, I’m definitely not important (I can see this nice young lady cringing at each self-inflicted insult I produce, by the way). Some of it will be about me, but that’s because there are many like me who use self-deprecation as a form of humor, and there are many more who use it as a defense mechanism for poor self-esteem, and then there are the majority who use it because for some reason or other, they truly do believe they aren’t worthy of any respect or compliment. Continue reading →

Are You Ready? (To Publish) – with special guest Hugh Howey (who hopefully won’t sue me)

Posted on August 29, 2013 by AngryGames

Are You Ready? (to publish…trust me, this joke got old quickly which means you don’t have to see it again anywhere in this book)

Hello. My name is Travis Hill. I’m a self-published author. You might know me from my memorable roles as “That loser that thinks he’s a writer” and “If I published something as bad as Mr. Hill’s book, I would probably cut my own head off and mail it to my worst enemy to let them know I am no longer a threat to them or anyone else.” If that sounds a little brutal and grim, self-publishing might not be for you. Because I’ll be honest, sometimes you’ll run into a pack of wild animals known as ‘reviewers’ who don’t have your best interests at heart. They say they do, but it’s only after they scatter from your bloody corpse when the authorities arrive that you realize they only wanted the marrow in your bones, not the words on your pages.

Now, this book isn’t about how terribly mean and nasty book reviewers can be. If you haven’t published anything yet, you haven’t felt the wrath of a bad review. Maybe you’ve watched other authors have their mountains of gold-plated skulls flattened by a scathing review that went well beyond criticism and almost ended up being evidence in a criminal trial as a threat/promise. Yeah. That’s pretty scary stuff. But you know what? Get used to it. I’m not going to try and say you will get one of these per day (unless you are me, it’s like someone posted a sign on my back that says “SEND ME HATEMAIL AT ANGRYDOUCHE@GMAIL.COM BECAUSE I’M A DOUCHE”), but at some point as a published writer, especially a self-published writer working the flea-market stalls of Amazon, iTunes, Barnes & Noble, and such, you WILL get one of these reviews. And some hatemail.

Thick skin is not only your best friend, it is your ONLY friend as a writer. Let’s take a look at my world, and if it doesn’t scare the ever-loving shit out of you, then you will probably be ready to finally hit that PUBLISH button and rolls your own dices. Continue reading →

‘Boycott Starbucks’ Is a Waste of Time

Posted on August 23, 2013 by AngryGames

Right. So. I love Starbucks. No, I don’t think they have the best coffee ever. Yes, I’m sure there are other companies and coffee shops who have not only better coffee, but more environmentally sustainable and small-farmer friendly practices as well. But I love Starbucks. I love my Venti Iced Mocha with only two pumps of chocolate and an extra shot of espresso. No whipped cream, stir it good please.

I happened to read THIS today, and while I try decently hard to not be drawn into certain debates, I sometimes forget that I’m a pretty opinionated a-hole a lot of the time (yes I support a woman’s right to choose, yes I support gay marriage, yes I support the legalization of marijuana, yes I support anti-bullying campaigns).

See…here’s my problem with this, and I’m definitely a ‘gun control’ advocate, but I think these ‘Moms’ would be better served taking up their cause elsewhere. Banning firearms in the coffee shop, any place of business really, will never stop a gunman intent on shooting the place up from bringing his weapon in. I don’t believe that if everyone else had a gun they’d stop him either. Continue reading →

And now with 100% more mailing list!

Posted on August 21, 2013 by AngryGames

So I finally got around to making a mailing list:

Travis Hill – News & Information about upcoming and new releases

If you’d like to get an email from me once in a while when I have some news to give about a new release or an upcoming release, just sign up through the link above. It’s easy and there’s no spam. Plus there’s the fact that I won’t be sending you an email every nine hours. Only when there’s something important to tell you, I promise!

It’s Harder This Way (now with 800% more stitches!)

Posted on August 19, 2013 by AngryGames

Hello all. I’ve not really done much this summer, but it is getting time to get back to work. Carly is headed back to work on Tuesday, another school year teaching AP-level classes to another group of walking hormone tornadoes. I tend to spend my summers doing a whole lot of nothing other than spending time with her since we don’t get to see each other much during the school year.

If you really care, we spend most of our summers going to teaching workshops. Or in the case of a couple of years ago, she went to Dartmouth for a whole week and I stayed home and probably played some guitar, some video games, and with some cats. Because I’m wild like that. Anyway, that teaching workshop lasts about four or five days, and we’ll spend another four or five driving around, going places we’ve never been before. This year after we left Seattle, we headed down to Astoria, Oregon. Beyond that, the next ten weeks or so consists of us sitting around playing Borderlands 2 or Team Fortress 2, reading, and catching up on television shows we didn’t get to watch during the school year (Game of Thrones, Dexter, Breaking Bad, Falling Skies for me so I can yell at it a lot, some bridezilla-type show for her that she yells at. It’s good stuff.

Right. So. Rambling a bit.

Two updates today. First is a PSA from me to everyone: Continue reading →

Sharknado – Ultimate Entertainment Experience!

Posted on July 12, 2013 by AngryGames

Boy. I don’t know what to say. My wife Carly and I just watched SyFy’s super-mega-ultra-awesome new movie “Sharknado”.

For those of you not paying attention to EARTH in the last few months, this movie stars Ian Ziering (90210) and Tara Reid (tabloids?). The plot is that a few super-tornadoes apparently spawn over the ocean next to Los Angeles, and somehow suck up 2,348,003 sharks of various, man-eating types, and begin to wander all over Los Angeles destroying things while the sharks that are rotating around inside…eat people.

Now, I did miss the first hour of this Emmy-Nominated (my own personal fantasy here, carry on) masterpiece, so I might have missed a lot of the important plot bits. The second half though, was a %@#$#@ ROLLER COASTER OF PLEASURE for my brain.

Wife too, Carly loved it. She spent the last hour of the movie (basically from the instant we turned it on) alternating between raging at the television, to screaming at the television, to one time standing straight up off the couch and screaming “THAT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN!!!”

Now, to be fair, it COULD happen. She doesn’t believe in the power of sci-fi like I do (hence why she’s a history teacher and I’m a writer). IT COULD happen that a dude could push a young woman out of the way of a shark that has just fallen out of a raging tornado (I’m assuming an F4 or F5, they were huge) straight down, mouth-first, started up his chainsaw, and dived off the pavement straight into the shark’s mouth.

Two minutes later, Carly topped her previous amount of disbelief when the dude CUTS HIS WAY OUT OF THE SHARK. With his chainsaw. Not only that, he rescues a helicopter pilot’s girlfriend (?) that had been eaten by the same shark not TEN minutes earlier while they were a thousand feet in the air flying right on the outer edge of one of these sharknadoes. The shark literally flew out of the sharknado, snatched this girl from the passenger seat of the helicopter, and then I guess disappeared back into the raging sharknado.

You guys…it was so awesome. I really wish you all had been there. There are no words to describe it properly…

It makes me wonder sometimes…WHO WRITES THIS SHIT???? And how the hell can I get hooked up with SyFy to sell a story like this? I have one of those ‘plot wheels’ just like SyFy does…you know, the one with the three wheels and you spin each one and write a story about whatever topics match up.

I just spun mine, and my next story is going to be about a congressman who is actually an ancient spider that has called his alien brethren back to Earth so they can devour human blood of their victims that have been falsely convicted of terrorism and sent to Guantanamo…

I’ll let you all know if SyFy bites on this. I really, truly don’t understand how they couldn’t!

Travis

PS It came on again two hours later, and we watched the entire thing while I live-tweeted it…amazing…

I Love Dreary Ol’ Seattle

Posted on June 22, 2013 by AngryGames

I love Seattle. I love the whole area. And I love Portland, Oregon as well. I love the weather in the wintertime in Seattle. I cannot say I am truly fond of the summertime weather though.

Last time we visited, two or three years ago (I’m really bad with dates/times, as my wife will tell you while standing over my unconscious body with a frying pan in her hand), it was the beginning of July. I took only shorts and t-shirts, thinking I would be fine. It was July. Boise was sitting at about 100F for two weeks already.

I nearly froze to death. It was miserable, and I was cold the whole time. Not this year. This year we packed double, because you have to have shorts and t-shirts for the nice days, and pants and long sleeves and hoodies for the majority of the days. I have no doubt no matter how I dress, the locals will nudge each other in the ribs and whisper whatever their derogatory term is for tourists whenever they see me. I will gladly accept this, because it is true.

This year I think we’ll spend a few days in Bellevue, then head to the capitol. Since Carly is a history/geography/government teacher, she wants to go to Olympia. From there we might drive down I-5 until we get to Portland. I REALLY want to go to Powell’s Books again. I could camp out in there for three days and be the happiest human on earth (until they caught me and had me arrested, though they might feel bad that a human has no life to the point they’d hide in a bookstore until after closing just to read books…seriously, if you haven’t been to Powell’s Books, you must go.)

To make a short story long, goodbye Boise, hello Seattle and rain. I bet I end up writing a really depressing story about suicide. I don’t mean that in a jokey or glib fashion either. As much as I love Seattle, it makes me write very depressing stories. I’m not sure how artistic people can live there full time.

But I’d sure love to find out one day 😉

Progress update – 6/18/2013

Posted on June 18, 2013 by AngryGames

I apologize for being silent so much. Not that anyone cares. The three of you that read my blog get annoying emails from me almost daily so…this is mostly to hear myself speak (type?).

I’m currently about 91,000 words into the book “Enforcer” and still cranking out about 3,000-10,000 words per night, closer to the 3k number really. Depends I guess, some nights I can go for two or three full chapters, sometimes I just have one in me. The title is still a working title, though it will most likely be the published title. It’s about a minor league hockey enforcer that gets tangled up with the Romanian mafia, moonlighting as an enforcer for them. Continue reading →

It’s Better This Way (novella) – update

Posted on June 10, 2013 by AngryGames

Hi everyone. I would just like to say that I’ve re-read the novella “It’s Better This Way” and found a few errors that need to be corrected. I always try to wait a couple of weeks to re-read things to make sure all the punctuation, grammar, spelling, and extra/lack of words are correct. If I wait a bit, the story becomes fresh in my brain again, and I can spot them easier.

As an independent, self-published author, I hate mistakes. They annoy me more than anything. Unfortunately, I do not have a professional editor at this time. So please hang tight while I make sure everything in the book is correct and proper. I’ll be uploading a new version in a few hours, so if you planned on downloading the book, wait a little bit and let me get the fixed version up so your reading experience won’t be marred by a few issues here or there.

The story won’t change one bit, but I’ve found a couple of places that were missing an important word and a few that either needed a comma or didn’t have a comma. Thanks for being understanding!