Introducing Author Gene DeRosa

Hey Everyone! I recently learned about SteemIt from a friend/cousin at our yearly Christmas celebration. He heard about it from a friend who is already on the site (I didn't think to ask for her name). He knows my background and thought SteemIt sounded like something I might be interested in. He also said that if I can figure it all out, then I could explain it to him as he just wasn't getting it when he checked out the site. In all honesty, at the moment I am not sure I understand it all. I know ZERO about cryptocurrency so I will figure that out along the way. The setup of the site does seem similar to things I have done in the past, though, which I think has made it easier for me to understand a bit. So please join me in what is sure to be an interesting learning curve.

Background

Growing up, I was never much of a reader, which makes it a bit ironic that I now write books for a living. The things I did read were generally reference materials -- something from which I could learn a bit of unneeded (but very interesting) knowledge. This turned into a love of all things trivia.

Once I found the Internet in the mid-90's this love of trivia blossomed. I joined AOL and sought out a chat room (Name That Tune) where people just typed and sent song lyrics to the room. The first person to name the song correctly would then type the next lyric. This went on all hours of the day and is where I spent hundreds of hours.

It would lead to a place I have called home for two decades now, the AOL Trivia Community. This community had organized live chat room trivia game every night of the week. In 1997, I started as a player, made some friends, and soon took the steps to become a Community Leader (CL) and Trivia Game Host. There was a training program where you learned from those that had been doing it for years. I have written and hosted thousands of live games now, co-created our own trivia site when AOL decided to kill off the CL program and at the same time basically destroy their entire worth and community, and have since used the tools I learned there to do bigger and better things.

Those many years on AOL led to dozens of long-lasting friendships. I even met my wife, who lived halfway across the country, in an AOL Trivia Game.

Becoming a Blogger

Sometime around 2007 I discovered "blogging" on a site that said I could make money from people clicking on my ads within my blog posts. I decided to give it a try and joined Orble.com. When I joined, I didn't realize it was based in Australia! I was one of the few people from the U.S. on the site, or so I thought. I ran multiple blog sites on Orble. My initial site I named "Blogging in America," which seemed fitting since I was outnumbered by so many Aussies. I then added "The Wrestling Wrap-Up," which was about all things professional wrestling, which has been a lifelong love/guilty pleasure.

After gaining a following and some experience, it became apparent that there was little chance to make money on the site due to their structure. Bloggers got 40% of the Google ad revenue produced by their sites while Orble management got the other 60% on the backs of the talented writers creating their content. At this point I decided to create my own blogging network with a similar structure, but with one big difference: on my blogging network, World Blogosphere, the bloggers got 80% of their ad revenue while I got 20%. That cut was mostly used to cover hosting costs, domain name purchases, and other overhead. The only profit I made from the site was from my own blog sites. My thought process was: create my own content, build up  list of others creating their blogs, and the traffic will increase for all involved.

World Blogosphere did flourish for a time. One of the bloggers that I had met on Orble, Natalie, soon became my partner in the site, and we also brought over a handful of other talented writers from Orble. However, not everyone was as dedicated to the success of the site as Natalie and I were. Then, unfortunately, Google switched the way their ads work and revenue for many crashed hard. That led to some bloggers just throwing their hands up and giving in. To this day, though, there are still a few sites still running and prospering on some level.

Transitioning to Author Gene

One of the first friends I made in 1997 in AOL Trivia was Brooksanne. We initially bonded over our love of all things television, and in particular the show M*A*S*H. In 2013, she and I decided we should write a M*A*S*H trivia book. Unfortunately real-life came knocking and she wasn't able to do it at the time, so I decided that while I waited for her, I needed to write something else.

I decided to take my new-found love of writing and try another venture. My wife Traci and I created Samson Publishing Company with the primary goal of writing and publishing my own books while also learning the process of publishing and self-publishing. I would write my trivia books and she would edit them and help with some of the layout. Then, we could share this newfound knowledge and publish books for others who might want to self-publish but didn't want to or were unable to put in the time to learn the ins and outs of it all.

I have always loved horror movies. While trying to decide what trivia book to write first, I came to the conclusion that perhaps I should marry my love of trivia and with my love of horror. This worked out well when I saw that the next Friday the 13th on the calendar happened to be June 13, 2014. Everybody knows that June 13th is Jason Voorhees's birthday! (Well, okay, not a lot of people knew that fact, but anyone who reads my book does now!) I thought I could have the book done in time to release it on his birthday.

Friday the 13th was the first horror movie I ever watched. I was almost ten years old at the time and my family had just gotten cable. Soon after we got cable, MTV premiered, which led to many life-shaping experiences. I saw the original Friday the 13th was going to be playing late one night. At the time, I often would fall asleep on the couch while watching TV and everyone learned that if they woke me up, I got cranky and wouldn't go back to sleep in my bed. Also, if they turned the TV off, I would wake up instantly with the same result. My nine-year-old-self hatched a plan to watch this movie he had heard about. I turned on the channel the movie was going to be on and then pretended to be asleep whenever someone was in the room.

The movie started and I had to lay there in silence watching this film with characters taking an axe to the head, knife or spear to the throat, and more. After the initial terror wore off days or weeks later, I was hooked; I was a ten-year-old horror fan, now a life-long horror fan.

Success Since the Book's Release

After my first book, 6-13 A Friday the 13th Movie Trivia Book, came out, I started talking to some of the cast members on Facebook asking them if I could send them a free copy of my book. The conversations grew and now I actually sell their signed merchandise (photos, posters, replica hockey mask, and more) for them and book them into conventions. It really is an exciting journey from someone who was just a big horror fan to take. All of these items can be found in our store site at Signature Horror.

We started doing comic conventions at this point with the books and merchandise. They were great for meeting people, getting the book into the hands of fans, and networking, but not very profitable. One of the friends I made along the way, a somewhat famous author, shared some advice with me at the very first ComicCon we did. He said that if you become an author to make money, you are making a bad decision. If you do it for the love of what you are doing and stick with it, THEN at some point you might move to a point of making money, and maybe even become famous on some level. It was great advice and I took it to heart, but at some point you have to be making money at what you are doing to be able to continue doing what you love!

The Friday the 13th book was well-received by horror fans and I actually built up a bit of a loyal following. This made the schedule of books to write next rather clear. I planned to write books on A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween, and maybe even The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. However, the way the calendar shaped up, it made more sense to do the Halloween book next because I could have it released in time for October 2015.

Expanding Our Offerings

It was around April 2016 that we realized we might not be able continue doing comic conventions because we just weren't making enough money to cover the costs of the booth space and other overhead for them. Luckily, Traci decided to make herself a purse. Sewing, quilting, knitting, and all other things crafty have been in her family for generations. She could never find a purse that she really liked that fit her needs, so she got some "math nerd" fabric (sidenote - she is also a math teacher in a public school in Oklahoma; yes, she really can do it ALL) and made herself a purse.

When I saw the finished product I had an idea. We were doing all of these ComicCons, barely covering costs, and at times losing money. While there is a decent amount of crossover with the amount of horror fans at the events, they are mainly geared more towards pop culture, like Dr. Who, Star Wars, Marvel, and many others. We made up about a dozen purses and tote bags for our next show (which was in June) and brought them with us just to see how they'd do. They proved to be popular! We sold one the night of setup to another vendor, then four or five more the day of the event, and we took a custom order for two more bags.

We now run As You Wish Custom Bags and make a full line of purses, tote bags, cross-body bags, messenger/laptop bags, and others as well as accessories like lanyards, neckties, bow ties, and more. Most of our products are made using character fabrics -- Dr. Who, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Marvel & DC Comics characters, and the like. This new product line pulls in the WHOLE crowd at Comic Cons now.  Many who are drawn by the bags then see the horror books and merchandise and say "oh, I love horror, too!"

Presently

We have now added another product line which is going strong since we started it about six months ago. We make 2.25-inch pinback buttons, mirrors, and magnets. We currently have about 700 different designs for sale at shows and are always adding more. We also make custom buttons on the spot; we can take and use a photo of a person's cosplay at a show, use an existing photo they have, or fill any requests for characters or shows we might not already have.

In 2017 we did shows about twenty weekends out of the year; for 2018 we will hopefully keep growing to closer to thirty or thirty-five. We are well on the way to that goal as we have booked many of the same shows way ahead of time, which is new for us. We previously booked shows just a couple weeks out.

I am also working on my third book, which veers slightly from the horror genre. The Twilight Zone Trivia Book and Encyclopedia is about six months overdue now; it turned out to be a lot more work than I expected and has taken me longer to get it just the way I want it. When it is finished, though, it will be over 800 pages focusing on the classic TV series which sci-fi fans and TV fans should love!

My Plans On SteemIt

I miss writing about random stuff I might find on the internet or see on TV or in everyday life. I will be returning to my roots in that way, I think.

I will probably post a bit about the conventions we do, perhaps celebrity encounters at the shows, and am considering doing a weekly Wrestling Wrap-Up post if there is an audience for it here. Perhaps we can post some instructional videos for sewing small projects. Expect a lot of random stuff mixed in as well.

Along the way we expect to make more friends, and hey, if we manage to become Crypto-Millionaires, so be it!

Please leave any comments and say hello.