Item. Big deal?  Go Set a Watchman is creating a media and reader frenzy.  What’s the big deal?  Will Lee get her second Pulitzer for it?  I hope not, especially if it’s as badly written as To Kill a Mockingbird.  N. Scott Momaday’s House Made of Dawn, also a Pulitzer winner, is a novel providing better insight into an unusual culture (Lee’s is the South, Momaday’s is North American Indian).  Momaday has few competitors.  Lee has many—Faulkner is just one example.  I’m about as excited about this book as I was about Rohling’s detective novel, that is, it produces a yawn.  It would be nice to see Lee beat out E. L. James, though, just to set the Universe right again.

Item. More than Human: The Mensa Contagion. “People of Earth!  You’ve just won a complete makeover of your society that brings peace and prosperity.  What will you do next?”  “Why, go to Mars, of course!”  This epic sci-fi tale relates how an invading ET virus affects Earth’s social structures and subsequent space exploration.  Some time ago, I wrote two sci-fi trilogies, “The Clones and Mutants Trilogy” and “The Chaos Chronicles Trilogy,” but I’ve returned to the hard sci-fi genre with this stand-alone.  This new novel might seem like a combination of Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land, Crichton’s Andromeda Strain, Clarke’s Rendezvous with Rama, and Weir’s The Martian, but I’m hoping readers will find it to be a new and exciting story about new beginnings for humans on Earth and beyond; it’s full of both weirdness and hope.  Now available on Amazon, Smashwords, and most other online retailers for $2.99.  Who knows?  Maybe there will be a sequel.

Item. My publishing team.  They’re the best, most efficient team in the indie publishing business!  I’ll start with Debby and Carol, my beta-readers.  They find logical flaws and catch those last few editing errors all the while reading a raw manuscript (MS) on their laptops.  Donna, a fantastic author in her own right, runs Carrick Publishing with hubby Alex.  She does a great job of formatting and proof reading, taking that raw MS and turning it into a high quality ebook for your enjoyment.  For More than Human (see above), that formatting was double trouble, because I release sci-fi ebooks on both Amazon and Smashwords.

Sara, my creative cover artist, reads the raw MS for cover ideas and comes up with a work of art that relates to my story.  Finally, someone who I often fail to acknowledge at the end of my ebooks but a person who plays an important role after the book is released, is my online PR and marketing guru Amanda, of Book Buzz.  She offers quality services at reasonable prices that help launch an ebook.

Note my team members are smart, successful women.  They’re also great friends.  I’m lucky to have them on my team because they allow me to focus on my writing.  (OK, I do a wee bit of PR and marketing on my own, too, the kind that doesn’t cost anything beyond free samples of an ebook.)  Every indie writer should be so lucky to team up with friends like these.  With their motivating help, I can keep costs down and say that my ebooks are quality entertainment at reasonable cost.

Item. Free short stories.  If you missed last week’s new one, “The Universal Language,” and last Wednesday’s “The Call,” check them out.  In two weeks, I’ll post “The Piano Man.”  My blog category “Steve’s Shorts” contains other freebies.  They remain there until I get around to including them in a short story collection (Amazon requires removing them at that time).  For less recent ones, check out my three short story collections.  Two are at $0.99 and provide an inexpensive introduction to my fiction writing.

Item. Series?  I have four of them, yet very book in these series is a stand-alone.  That means you can pick any ebook in any series of mine and read that novel without missing anything (that is, you’ll only miss the independent stories in other ebooks in the series).  In other words, every ebook of mine is a complete story—there are no cliffhangers in any of my novels.  Of course, you can read the novels in a series in order if you desire—common characters are bound to develop a wee bit.  For example, Castilblanco is courting Pam Stuart in The Midas Bomb; in Angels Need Not Apply, they’re married; and in Family Affairs, the new Chen and Castilblanco adventure out this fall, their lives will change again.

Item. Kindle Countdown Deals.  Two incredible sales are coming up for you: Soldiers of God, that sci-fi thriller link between the “Clones and Mutants Trilogy” and the “Chaos Chronicles Trilogy,” will go on sale for $1.99, reduced from $3.99; Aristocrats and Assassins, #4 in the “Detectives Chen and Castilblanco Series,” a thriller that takes place mostly in Europe and features the kidnapping of royal family members by a terrorist, will go on sale for $0.99, reduced from $2.99.  Both sales will run from August 31 through September 4.  Don’t miss this chance for some exciting summer and fall reading.

Item. Amazon reviews.  Apparently Amazon is “cracking down.”  Their little bots are looking for any internet links between author or publisher and reviewer and deleting those book reviews.  This is all the more reason for my not posting reviews to Amazon anymore.  I used to do that for books I casually read (i.e. not in my official reviewing capacity at Bookpleasures), but those reviews will now only appear in my blog posts in the category “Mini-Reviews of Books.”  Readers and writers take note.  BTW, never ask me for reviews.  Query Bookpleasures.  We have many reviewers, and I might be the one to choose your book.  For books that I casually read, I choose to read them.  Exception: If I reviewed one of your previous books and found it entertaining, I might be open to reading a more recent one, but no guarantees.  I read a lot, always have, but I have to be picky—I still read more than I write, though.

Item. Prime Day.  My take is that results were mixed.  Smart shoppers snatched up the real goodies in a flash, leaving five pound bags of red hots and fancy dog-nail clippers to the latecomers.  Amazon Prime, BJ’s, and Costco, the ABC’s of buying clubs (Walton’s just can’t compete in online infrastructure, and the B and C aren’t really online) have always been a mystery to me.  For Prime, that $99 per year membership fee just about pays for formatting an ebook or a PR and marketing campaign for an ebook release.  And I’m not really into supporting Kindle Unlimited, available to Prime members, because I get shafted when ebooks are borrowed.

Come to think of it, with the price of my ebooks (less than most fast food meals), it’s a mystery to me why anyone would jump through all those hoops and pay $99/year instead of just buying the ebook.  I choose to gamble on ebooks all the time when they’re $5 or less.  As a reviewer, I had to borrow an ebook once (something about the release of the book), and was ticked off when “my time was up” and I hadn’t finished the book.

I’ll do the math for you: For a $3 ebook, I make about $2, which means I need to sell about 300 or so just to break even (I have yet to reach that threshold!).  But you, dear reader, have fun reading an entertaining, thought-provoking story at a cost less than a meal at Burger King.  Guess who’s getting the better deal.  (A smiley emoticon could be inserted here.)  Or, read on, and compare to the deal traditional publishers give you.  Indie authors provide you quality reading entertainment at reasonable prices.  Take a gamble with them.

Item. Legacy publishing’s gouging.  When will they learn?  I just received an Amazon ad offering Michael Connolly’s new ebook The Crossing for $14.99.  Is this a discounted price?  Legacy publishing AKA traditional publishing is pricing itself out of business.  I like Michael’s stories, and there’s probably a wee bit of Bosch in my detective Castilblanco, but really?  $14.99?  C’mon!  I’ve read at least three ebooks by indie writers recently that are just as good as any ebook in Michael Connolly’s catalog.  I won’t buy this one until I see it on sale for less than $5.  Got the last one that way.  ‘Nough said.

[Waiting for sci-fi?  More than Human: The Mensa Contagion is now available on Amazon, Smashwords, and other online retailers.  Kindle Countdown Deals: Soldiers of God will go on sale for $1.99, reduced from $2.99; Aristocrats and Assassins will go on sale for $0.99, reduced from $2.99.  Both sales run from August 31 through September 4.]

In elibris libertas… 

This entry was posted on Friday, July 24th, 2015 at 5:56 am and is filed under News and Notices from the Writing Trenches. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.