Category Archives: eBooks
Why You Probably Won’t be a Top 10 Bestseller at Amazon
I’ve been watching something pretty closely, and I just wanted to clarify it here so people are aware. Amazon.com has their top 100 paid books list – their version of bestsellers – but don’t be fooled into thinking it’s any kind of a level playing field.
A while back, Amazon changed things so that free books no longer compete with paid books on the bestseller list. Two separate lists. This is why I tell people, making your book free probably won’t help it’s sales. First, it makes it no more likely to be noticed than it was before, and second, even if you become the #1 bestselling free book on Amazon, the minute you put a price on your book, that ranking disappears and you are starting over with paid sales.
Now there are new things. In the top ten of Amazon’s paid bestseller list you will find four titles currently filling slots that are #1 in multiple categories. These books are not even published yet, officially. However, there is the Kindle First Program, and there is Amazon Prime. Combining those two, you can buy these pre-release books for a price of… nothing … if you are a prime member. Free brand new books. All four titles are also published by Amazon imprints where (as we all know) they will be promoted in ways and to quantities of Kindle readers almost nothing else can match… In other words, your book is competing against brand new pre-release free books being published by the people compiling the list. You can see that this is a problem… four of the top ten slots are being gamed by the publisher and retailer, using free sales they semantically report as paid sales – and I’m not telling you this because we should rise up and stop them – it’s their store. I just want you to be aware. You are probably NOT going to make that top ten list. In the image above, two of the three top books today are Amazon books that are pre-orders and Kindle First.
Crossroad Press recently had a book sell over 3500 copies in a day and it made it to #12. That was with a price drop and a great third party promotion (that was not cheap). Consider that to GET that promotion, the book already had to have a great cover, good reviews, etc… and you can see another “gaming” piece fall into place. If you can sell thousands of free pre-orders and they count as paid sales…those buyers can also leave reviews. That means, those books will be eligible for bigger promotions from other sites right out of the gate, and not because they are better books, but because Amazon has promoted them through the roof.
So next time you wonder how in the heck some of those books got there and stay there, remember this article. Currently four books by authors I’ve never heard of are kicking butt on Stephen King, J. K. Rowling, and James Patterson (who doesn’t actually write books, but has his name on a lot of best-selling ones) … and if those folks aren’t in the top ten, the rest of us can start figuring our odds using negative numbers.
-DNW
Category Archives: eBooks
This is My Blood – .99 from Now until the 11th.
This is My Blood was the first novel I ever sold. In the end, my Star Trek Voyager novel, Chrysalis, came out before this one, but that was only due to the failure of the original publisher to actually – well – publish the book. The journey to publication would make a story unto itself, but I’m not going to cover it at this point.
One day, in the middle of the ocean, a group of us were sitting around, playing music, drinking coffee, and working on the various creative endeavors that kept us sane. Out of the blue, someone said: “What if Jesus was a vampire?” There are a lot of flaws in such a story – though others have tried to write it – and I was quick to point them out. I was, after all, not that far past the period of my life where Christianity and I parted ways. I had studied with an eye toward the ministry at one point, and I’d read the book – several times.
What I proposed, eventually, was that it made much more sense if someone close to Jesus was a vampire. Someone he trusted. Someone who could account for the rising of the dead in three days, without it actually being the man himself behind it all. I didn’t write about it then, I thought about it, and I filed it away with a lot of other ideas. Eventually I wrote a novelette – A Candle in the Sun – that was published in Starshore Magazine, then reprinted in Year’s Best Horror XIX, edited by Karl Edward Wagner, and has since been reprinted nearly a half dozen more times. It was good – everyone agreed that it was good, but I knew that it wasn’t complete. I just wasn’t ready to do the thing justice.
Then, on a completely different cruise, locked in a transmitter room with a 386 computer, a Deskjet 500 inkjet printer, and a CD Player loaded with Concrete Blonde & Depeche Mode, I realized it was time. I had a marked up, four inch tall copy of the New Testament that the Gideon Society had presented the ship with, and I had notes. I started out, jumping from gospel to gospel when some part of the story either had a hole, or was missing something important. As I went, I crafted large chunks of The Gospel According to Judas Iscariot, because I’d always thought he got a raw deal in the original mix, and I wanted him for a hero.
This is My Blood is a different telling of a very old story. I changed none of the order of things, nor did I change the outcome – only the road to reach that outcome. Mary Magdalene, raised by Lucifer in the desert to tempt Jesus in the guise of a woman, instead refused – wanting to return to Heaven. Lucifer cursed her to follow in Jesus’ footsteps, feeding on the faithful, and claimed she would become his undoing.
That is where my story starts. You will find the king’s daughter, raised from the dead, Lazarus, all the apostles in their flawed faith, and a narrator – in Mary – who does not depend on faith, but sees with the eyes of one who KNOWS what is truth, and is not impressed with the spirituality of men. Lilith also plays a sizeable part in this book.
All that I learned, figured out on my own, and wanted to repeat of The Bible, Christianity, faith, and – I suppose – of shadows – was tied up in this early work of mine. I have since come to believe that ancient myths should be left to the ancient societies who created them, and that we should worry more over our own self-worth than that of others. I don’t believe there are any spiritual rules laid down in the words of long dead men that I should follow, but I do believe that men know, inherently, the difference between right, and wrong, and that all choices made in that area are their own. No free ticket out for asking forgiveness, and no pit of fire for failures.
You’ll find that, I think, in the pages of This is My Blood. You’ll also find fantasy, vampires, and a lot more. I hope you’ll read it, and that you’ll like it as much as others have. Below are some links to reviews the book has received in the past – I include them here because I believe they are proof I have reached people with this book. I love reading the reviews of this book in particular because, for one thing, it was my first – and for another, it has affected so many people in so many ways. Here is the very first – from Publisher’s Weekly:
“Religious ecstasy and vampiric bloodlust blend to potent effect in this horror-oriented alternate history of early Christianity. Debut novelist Wilson casts Mary Magdelene as a spirit created by the Devil to tempt Christ. When Mary refuses the mission, Satan rebukes Jesus and curses her to become a vampire: “She will hunger for that which You fight to preserve. She will thirst for the blood of manAthe lives, the very souls You seek to save will be her bread.” Mary follows Christ, hoping for a miracle that will allow her to gain eternal salvation even as her vampiric nature forces her to kill to survive. Through her inhuman eyes, and through the writings of Judas’s own gospel, The Book of Judas, Wilson shows Christ and his disciples at work, lending a decidedly different perspective to miracles such as feeding the multitudes with a few loaves and fishes or raising Lazarus from the dead. Here, Judas is steady and loyal, while Peter, possessed by the Devil, betrays Christ to the soldiers at Gethsemane, forcing both Judas and Mary to sacrifice what they love most in order to ensure Christ’s resurrection and the Church’s future. Wilson’s prose is smooth and powerful, carrying its allegorical weight with grace. His first novel is one of the most unique vampire stories to appear in recent years, balancing themes of damnation and prophesy against those of faith and redemption.” – Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
BUY THIS IS MY BLOOD at BARNES & NOBLE – DRM FREE
BUY THIS IS MY BLOOD FOR YOUR KINDLE OR E-READER AT AMAZON.COM – DRM FREE
Category Archives: eBooks
Heart of a Dragon – Featured at Kindle Books & Tips – .99 limited time
Book I of the DeChance Chronicles – Heart of a Drago – is featured at Kindle Books and Tips Blog
Heart of a Dragon – Book I of the DeChance Chronicles, by David Niall Wilson, is regularly $3.99 but has been discounted to just $0.99 today in the Amazon Kindle store. This book has received an average user rating of 4.6 out of 5 stars based on 10 customer reviews.
Category: Fantasy
Here is the book’s description from the Amazon website:
Author’s Revised Edition
Donovan DeChance is a collector of ancient manuscripts and books, a practicing mage, and a private investigator. Over the span of a long life, he has gathered and archived the largest occult library in the world.
When a local houngan begins meddling with powers she may not be able to control, a turf war breaks out between the Dragons motorcycle club and the Los Escorpiones street gang—a war that threatens to open portals between worlds and destroy the city in the process.
With his lover, Amethyst, his familiar, Cleo – an Egyptian Mau the size of a small bobcat –the dubious aid of a Mexican sorcerer named Martinez and the budding gifts of a young artist named Salvatore, DeChance begins a race against time, magic, and almost certain death.
The fate of the city rests on his success, and on the rare talent of a boy who walks in two worlds, and dreams of dragons
Click here or type in http://smarturl.it/ptxcnd into your web browser to pick up your copy ofHeart of a Dragon – Book I of the DeChance Chronicles.
_____
Category Archives: eBooks
eBook & Publishing Predictions for 2014 10 + 2 Bonus
***Bonus prediction one from the Crossroad Press Organic Shredder – Gizzy Momo – pictured left … Thunder & Lightning All Day long…***
I’ve seen some other folks making predictions about publishing and eBooks. Some of them seem pretty obvious, others show some insight, and still others seem kind of self-serving and more wishful than anything else. Crossroad Press has been in business for going on five years now (seriously, and a bit longer as a hobby). We’ve grown, made some mistakes, had some huge successes, expanded, and paid attention, and I thought, just for fun, I would make some predictions of my own for 2014. Some will be in direct disagreement with those of others…but all will be just me, talking about what I’ve seen, and what I know…
***BONUS PREDICTION FOR 2014: Neil Gaiman will continue to be wildly popular because he is an incredible storyteller ***
1) Print book sales are actually up. I see Barnes and Noble pointed out as about to flounder time and again, but here’s my prediction. Come next year, though people will probably still be predicting their demise, they’ll be right here. Nook book sales are steady for those who don’t spend as much time bashing Barnes & Noble as they do promoting books there, and working on sales. They lost the tablet war, but that was a war that no one should have started. Nooks are fine, and ePub books work on many devices. So, prediction #1, B&N will be in at least as good a shape this time next year as it is now. Probably better.
2) Audiobooks are going to start playing a bigger part in total sales, as systems like Audible’s ACX continue to make more titles accessible. With Amazon’s Whispersync for Voice program – something other eBook retailers can’t match – more readers will be able to pick up audiobooks at very reasonable prices, and more audiobook listeners will be picking up eBooks in order to get the bargain price on the audiobooks. The percentage of titles that make it to audio is already much higher than it was five years ago, and will continue to grow.
3) Content in eBooks that is video, enhanced, full of programmed features, will not do any better this year than in previous years, because they simply require people to read on tablets, not readers, and the trend (currently) seems to be (among serious readers) back toward simpler devices that are mostly good just for eBooks. If people want to watch a movie, they will download one – but books are not going to evolve into some new meta-entertainment system. At least not in 2014.
4) Libraries will continue to grow their downloadable content, and will embrace the new technologies and systems put in place to assist them. Overdrive will start to lose its market share because of simple greed – if it’s as expensive, or more expensive, to provide eBooks to readers, it isn’t going to help already suffering library budgets evolve and sustain. From personal contact with many librarians and buyers for libraries, I can state that there are a number of independent systems buying now directly from publishers, and more coming in the future. While I have seen people saying libraries will be buying directly from authors, don’t fool yourself. There will be an aggregator, and whoever that is is going to take a cut. Libraries don’t have the manpower or overhead to sift through hundreds of thousands of solicitations from authors to carry their individual books. In 2014, libraries will buy a lot more eBooks, but they will buy directly from publishers, or distribution systems.
5) Promotion of eBooks will continue to evolve. What works today will probably be on the wane by 2015 because it will become bloated, too many people will copy it, and the effectiveness will be diluted. Companies who succeed in weathering the storm will be those that keep their prices reasonable, pre-screen their titles to keep the quality as steady as possible, and change with the market. I expect that at least one of the big promoting machines will pick up on my earlier comment about Whispersync and audiobooks. I know from our own statistics that during really successful eBook promotions, we sell a ton of audiobooks on titles that are part of the Whispersync program.
6) It will not be any easier for a new author to promote or sell their books in 2014 than it was in 2013. Famous authors will continue to sell crazy numbers of books. Retailers like Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble will continue to announce books as best-sellers before they even go into pre-order. NYC will pump in the money that ensures millions of sales for books by tried-and-true authors. Most of the “Best of the Year” lists will ignore about 95 percent of the best of the year in favor of the Best of the Year published in high profile. The game, in other words, is just a modified version of the old game. The Catch-22 is that if you haven’t got a lot of money and aren’t fairly famous, the odds are stacked against you. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t buck those odds, just stating a fact. A new cover, better description – .99 bargain price? They just don’t matter unless something causes readers to SEE YOUR BOOK. That is the key. The people who see it should not be your family, friends, and a thousand other authors…they should be people who don’t know you from Adam, but like to read.
7) Gurus will continue to tell you they know all the answers. I will continue to say – if that was really true, they wouldn’t spend so much time trying to do things other than write, they would be using their secrets and making millions. What works for one person won’t necessarily work for another. Pay attention to what successful authors say, watch what they do, but don’t try to be them, and try to find ways to use what you learn in your own way. “The next…” anyone will never be more than a dim shadow of the original, so why strive to be that?
8) Smaller print publishers will continue to be treated by bookstores as if they are big publishers, and many of both will fail because of this. Unless independent bookstores find ways to embrace Print on Demand publishers and distance themselves from the big distributors, they will continue to disappear and by 2015 there will be considerably fewer of them, shifting most print book sales to Amazon and B&N online. The old model of buying a bunch of books and then returning half of them will disintegrate as independent publishers flourish, and NYC slowly decays.
9) The age-old practice of looking at what’s hot and trying to copy it really fast will proliferate in 2014, continuing the spiral into that nonsense generated by successes in 2013, such as every variation of a shade of gray that can be applied to any sort of title being used to bump sales. You will continue to see people go on and on about thousands of “sales” that were free giveaways, best-seller lists that are meaningless, and piles of five-star reviews that don’t actually equate in any way to quality or sales. This is why – as stated above – the very popular authors will continue to be popular, and it will be hard to break in. For every book someone spent time and effort on, there are fifty crap titles with nothing in mind but ‘cranking them out’. This makes people gunshy about buying from new authors, and is also why the legit, careful promotional services will continue to draw actual readers.
10) The traditional author / agent / editor / publisher role will continue to morph. Agents are now admittedly scraping new clients off the self-published best-seller lists (probably from a lot of people they ignored when the books were originally submitted) and all this can do is lengthen the already ridiculous lag time between submitting a manuscript and hearing back. As more and more successful authors begin to see the huge profit margin shift of more independent publishing, more of their peers will begin to experiment and follow suit. Agents have a tiny number of slots they can fill these days, and the advances against royalties that almost never sell-through, according to statements, have grown so small that no one could possibly live off of them without selling five to ten novels a year. A steady income earned through solid, quality output and direct royalties back on a regular basis will win the day. Companies paying a fair amount to the authors and taking over responsibilities authors should NOT have to learn to do (despite what gurus tell them) will do well in 2014 will flourish, as will rip-off groups charging authors an arm and a leg for scanning, formatting, promotion, etc. and keeping huge percentages – something that sadly a number of literary agents seem to have indulged in. New models will emerge. Subscription based reading services like ScribD and NokBoks will test new waters.
I know a lot of this is kind of vague, and in several of these single predictions, I predict a bunch of things, and even offer possible alternative outcomes. The thing is, it’s fluid. No one knows everything, and new technology, players, and talent emerge every day. Keep an open mind, write… always be writing… and pay attention.
And from all of us at Crossroad Press, have a great New Year…
-DNW
Category Archives: eBooks
Thanksgiving Note to All Who Have Supported Crossroad Press
LAUNCHED A COMPANY LIKE A ROCKET…
Several years back i got the crazy idea to start getting my old books and stories digitized, and I started a very long, very involved learning curve that led me through the creation of Macabre Ink, and then the expanded Crossroad Press Digital, and finally – to what we have now – Crossroad Press Publications – print, audio, and eBooks from more than 130 authors.
First and foremost I want to thank David Dodd, who came on board early on and has been a lifesaver to the company. He is the master of spreadsheets, formatting scanned documents, and keeping me organized through years that have not grown simpler, but crazier – mostly in good ways. He is also responsible for a HUGE number of book covers, a talent he took up from scratch and has brought to an artform.
Many don’t understand how little of what we make, we keep. If we invest any money at all up front in a book, it can take hundreds of sales for us to even break even. Why? Because we have stood by our guns, and will continue to stand by our guns. This is an author’s first company, and most of the money goes to them. This means some books never make us any money, and others make us a lot – we share the risk, and the profit. We do what we can to promote and build readership, and I can tell you that the number of hours spent doing this is incredible – for myself, Dave Dodd, the love of my life Patricia Lee Macomber who has edited HUNDREDS of books in recent months – Kurt Criscione, Daz Pulsford, Anita Smith and an entire small army of proof readers have helped us present clean products, and as we’ve always said – the beauty of digital is you can fix things. We have been quick (and will remain quick) when it comes to remedying any mistakes we make or problems found by others.
I could go on and on with the thanks but instead, I’ll just end this with some pretty impressive numbers, and let it go at that:
Here is a short growth curve (rounded slightly in some cases) to show how our company has grown since 2010.
…………………Net Sales…………………………………Royalties to authors
2010………… 3094…………………………………………$4,324.39
2011……….. 27,971……………………………………..$56,268.51
2012……….135,410……………………………………..$88,064.25
2013……….170,523…………………………………….$197,600.00 (so far)
We are looking forward to great things ahead. We are making inroads in promotion, and have completely redesigned our website, and our presence, breaking into imprints for the various age groups and genres. You can see the beginnings of this at OUR NEW WEBSITE – once we get all of the author pages populated on all the various imprint sites, it will be much simpler to find our books, and our authors, without digging through more than 700 digital titles at the old online store. We have also published more than 350 unabridged audiobook titles, and have an impressive number of books available in print. Right now we are hard at work on the Official Book of the Winter Olympics – 2014 edition – which should be huge for us.
I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season, and to all of you – readers, listeners, authors, copy-editors, partners, and family. Thank you… I can honestly say, I never saw this coming.
-David Niall Wilson
Category Archives: eBooks
Nevermore Included in Storybundle Thriller Package!
I am privileged and excited to be included in one of these very cool eBook bundles – a chance for readers to get a bunch of books cheap – and for authors to reach a new and wider audience. I’m not going to go on about it – all the details are below. The image is linked to the Storybundle site.
THRILLS AND CHILLS IN OUR OCTOBER THRILLER BUNDLE
Thrillers come in many different shapes and sizes and we’ve assembled a wide spectrum of tastes in this new thriller set, available Oct 22 through Nov 12. From worldwide conspiracies to rampaging kaiju creations, this bundle has it all!
StoryBundle’s Thriller Bundle is curated by international bestselling author Joseph Nassise, and includes his own novel The Cerberus Protocol, the first in a high-octane action thriller series written with long-time friend and co-writer Jon F. Merz. “We wanted to combine the action and suspense of the thriller genre with the chills of dark fantasy, which we think is a perfect combination for the autumn thriller bundle.” Nassise is best known for his internationally bestselling Templar Chronicles series and is a regular contributor to the Rogue Angel thriller series from Gold Eagle/Harlequin.
Joining Nassise and Merz are a host of fantastic authors bringing some truly original works – award-winner Christopher Golden brings the first in his Body of Evidence series; bestseller Jeremy Robinson treats us to a kaiju thriller to rival Pacific Rim; supernatural thriller writer David Niall Wilson shares a novel of love, loss, and Edgar Allen Poe, bestseller Russell Blake gets dark and deadly in a noir detective thriller. The U.K. contingent rounding out our bundle is equally impressive – #1 U.K. bestsellers Steven Savile, Zoe Sharp and Sean Black all deliver tension-filled excitement in their action-oriented thrillers.
Nassise, who assembled this talented collection of writers, says, “I wanted to showcase the variety inherent in the thriller genre today and decided that only the best would do. To that end I put together a group of bestselling and award-winning writers, knowing the result would be an impressive showcase of the very best the genre has to offer.”
The initial titles in the Thriller Bundle are:
- The Cerberus Protocol by Joseph Nassise and Jon F. Merz
- Body Bags by Christopher Golden
- Project Nemesis by Jeremy Robinson
- First Drop by Zoe Sharp
- Nevermore by David Niall Wilson
- Black by Russell Blake
If you pay more than the bonus price of just $10, you get all six of the regular books, plus two bonus titles, which include:
- Ogmios by Steven Savile – a three-in-one omnibus edition that includes the novels Solomon’s Sealwritten with Steve Lockley, Lucifer’s Machine written with Rick Chesler, and Wargod written with Sean Ellis.
- Lock & Load by Sean Black, a Ryan Lock novella
That’s a total of ten novels in all!
The bundle is available for a very limited time only, via StoryBundle, and allows for easy reading on computers, mobile devices and Kindles via file transfer, email, or other methods, with multiple DRM-free formats (.epub and .mobi) available for each book.
It’s also super easy to give the gift of reading with StoryBundle, thanks to our gift cards—which allow you to send someone a code that they can redeem for any future StoryBundle bundle—and timed delivery, which allows you to control exactly when your recipient will get the gift of StoryBundle.
Why StoryBundle? Here are just a few benefits StoryBundle provides.
- Get quality reads: We’ve chosen works from excellent authors to bundle together in one convenient package.
- Pay what you want: You decide how much six fantastic books are worth to you. If you can only spare a little, that’s fine! You’ll still get access to six thrilling titles.
- Support authors: StoryBundle is a platform for authors to get exposure for their works, both for the titles featured in the bundle and for the rest of their catalog.
- Give to worthy causes: Bundle buyers have a chance to donate a portion of their proceeds to charity. We’re currently featuring Mighty Writers and Girls Write Now.
- Receive extra books: If you beat our bonus price, you’re not just getting four novellas, you’re getting seven!
StoryBundle was created to give a platform for independent authors to showcase their work, and a source of quality titles for thirsty readers. StoryBundle works with authors to create bundles of ebooks that can be purchased by readers at their desired price. Before starting StoryBundle, Founder Jason Chen covered technology and software as an editor for Gizmodo.com and Lifehacker.com.
For more information, visit our website at storybundle.com, Twitter us at @storybundle, Like us on Facebook, and Plus us on Google Plus. For press inquiries, please email press@storybundle.com.
Category Archives: eBooks
15 Supernatural Thrillers for Halloween! I'm in it!
15 Supernatural Thrillers for Halloween – An infographic by the team at supernatural thrillers
Category Archives: eBooks
Killer Green – From Twitter to Screenplay to Option to Novel Reviews Needed
Here’s the deal. Back in 2009 a very warped idea was conceived on the social media micro-blogging site, Twitter. It became my latest novel – KILLER GREEN. This project has done well so far depending on social media as it’s platform, so I’m reaching out again. The book needs readers and reviews. I will therefore gift 20 copies of this book to folks willing to review it on Amazon.com – and I’m making this call through the blog where the original screenplay that became this novel was written and shared – and through Twitter and Facebook, where it has continued to exist – largely due to the friends and online family that helped bring it to life. Below is the Author’s introduction to the book, which gives the whole sordid story of the screenplay and it’s journey to eBook – soon print and unabridged audio. To receive your copy either DM me on Twitter at @David_n_Wilson – send me a message on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/DNiallWilson or send an e-mail to david AT macabreink DOT com. First 20 in get the books. Tell me your preferred eBook format in your note, and if you want the Kindle book, please supply the e-mail you use on Amazon so I can gift it to you.
Here is the Synopsis for those who have missed it: Quentin Tarantino meets Smokey & The Bandit in this noir, science-fiction thriller. Sometimes, people just need killing. When Sam West wanders into the Sunny-Side-Up Diner for the last time, hoping for a last slice of Mort’s world-class pie, and one last look at a waitress named Delilah, he has no idea he’s about to become the instrument of a great, karmic cleansing. The only thing crazier than the seemingly inevitable trail of bodies following Sam and Delilah south is the fact that – as State Police and local sheriffs begin to investigate – they find no evidence. Nothing. And the missing bodies are just the start, as an unlikely band of companions are drawn together in a scientific experiment more in line with the TV Series Fringe than anything in reality, with the threat of alien probes, local law enforcement, and rednecks around every corner.
Category Archives: eBooks
The Birth of a Novel, and Some Comments on Commitments
The other day a blogger took me to task for being disappointed that one of the blogs that signed up for my tour didn’t post the guest post I gave them, or respond in any way to queries about it. There was going to be a review at that tour stop too…something I’ve come to anticipate, as I’ve gotten only a moderate number so far on the book. Here’s the thing.
There was a bare minimum of effort required for that blogger to meet their commitment. I wrote the post, and I handed it in to them more than a month ahead of time. I provided a free copy of my book and, while that blog does have a review policy that says reviews not guaranteed, they committed to the review when they chose it as an option on the blog tour AND their own policy states that if they just couldn’t finish, or whatever, that they will say so… They said nothing.
Thankfully, the talented Michelle Lee let me borrow her blog space, and, albeit a day late, the Character Interview with LENORE is live (link below). Maybe I have unreasonable expectations, but these things have two-way commitments. I met and exceeded mine, and it’s frustrating and off-putting to have that work ignored. Enough on that. I hope nothing horrible happened in the life of the blogger in question, and I wish them well, but as a cautionary note – if you set up a blog tour, vetting the blogs carefully is important, and one thing I would check is how long it’s been in operation (the blog) and how regularly it’s updated. Also important? Traffic, comments, and popularity. If most of the traffic on a particular post is channeled through my own post about it on my blog, then I didn’t really need that other blog at all…the idea is to diversify and build the audience. I hope I’m doing that. On the up side, 287 people (or so) have signed up to win one of the prizes…
Today’s post is about the birth of Nevermore, A Novel of Love, Loss & Edgar Allan Poe. It covers the pre-story in Kali’s Tale, and moves on to explain how the book came into being. I hope you’ll enjoy it. Here’s a snippet:
“Eleven months ago, I wrote the following at the beginning of a post at my website and blog:
THE TOUR SO FAR:
Read a Character interview with LENORE (My version) at Michelle Lee’s blog
Read my post about what influences my writing at Rinn Reads!
Read my guest post about Donovan DeChance at the Paranormal Book Club
Read my post about romance in books over at Fierce Dolan’s Blog..
How personal and North Carolina history affect the novel – read at the FLYING HIGH blog!
Read about mining history for your fiction at Christine’s Words!
Read about the cover art by Lisa Snellings at Workaday Reads
Read the review of the book, and the guest post on keeping your series new
Read the interview at One More Chapter
Read my post about writers – and reading – at Janna Shay’s blog!
Read My post – Everybody Loves a Mystery – here in this blog!
Read my post “Let There be Magic” at the main Buy the Book Tour Site!
Read my post about “The Dark South” at The Open Book Society Blog…;
Read about Genres & Why I hate them : ==> AT THE AUTHOR’S CAFE
READ THE Guest Post about History in fiction at MELISSA’S BLOG!
Interview with me at the Blog of author Hywela Lin
Interview with Donovan DeChance at Laurie’s Thoughts and Reviews
Interview with Edgar Allan Poe at MJ Schiller’s Blog (join the discussion)
Get the details of the book tour – and the giveaways – at Buy the Book Tours…
BUY NEVERMORE! AT AMAZON.COM or BARNES & NOBLE or CROSSROAD PRESS
DOWNLOAD THE AUDIOBOOK FROM AUDIBLE.COM – NARRATED BY GIGI SHANE!
Category Archives: eBooks
The Blog Tour hits the Paranormal Book Club – BUY THE BOOK
As you can tell from the long list of posts, interviews, and reviews below, I’ve been working this blog tour for quite some time now. In that time, according to Statpress, I’ve had about 7,000 visitors to this blog alone, and about 30,000 page views. That seems like a lot. Here’s the reality of it – no matter how much I write about this book, people don’t seem to be buying it.
I am not a quitter, I am a writer. I invested nearly a month of my life writing posts for this blog tour, and I want to find a way to make it work. If you know people or hang out in places where there are people who like Dark Fantasy, or Edgar Allan Poe, or whatever, please…take a moment or two today and pass on the link to either this blog, or one of the many below. Sign up to win a copy, even if you don’t want it, and then give it to someone who does if you win…
Meanwhile, back near the Dismal Swamp, I am typing the long-lost Cletus J. Diggs novel “The Crazy Case of Foreman James” into the computer, and should move straight from that into “A Midnight Dreary,” Book V of the DeChance Chronicles… The words they won’t stop rollin’, no they just slow down…
Today’s post is over at the Paranormal Book Club. It’s not about Nevermore, per se. It’s about Donovan DeChance, and all the characters, stories, and books that led to the writing of Nevermore. Here’s a snippet:
“The DeChance Chronicles & Nevermore, a Novel of Love, Loss & Edgar Allan Poe
I’ve written a lot of guest posts on this blog tour in support of my newest novel, Nevermore, a Novel of Love, Loss & Edgar Allan Poe but I think it’s about time I spent a little time on the books that have come before, and the characters who made Nevermore possible.
I have written four books, so far, about a man named Donovan DeChance. Donovan is a mage, book collector, investigator, and self-appointed guardian of the balance of power in the world. He has a familiar, an Egyptian Mau grown at least twice as large as it should have. Her name is Cleo. In later books, he also has an old Crow named Asmodeus. His partner and romantic interest is a woman named Amethyst, who is an expert in the uses of stones and crystals.
As a younger man, I wrote a lot of licensed fiction. I did a Dark Ages vampire trilogy for White Wolf titled The Grails Covenant Trilogy, as well as several clan novels and standalone books. All of the time I worked on those novels, I was chomping at the bit. I pitched idea after idea, but they had a vision in mind for what their books would be, how their characters would act, etc. It was confining, and in the end, soul-sucking, and so I moved on to writing my own novels in my own worlds.” — Read the Entire Post at The Paranormal Book Club ->
THE TOUR SO FAR:
Read my post about romance in books over at Fierce Dolan’s Blog..
How personal and North Carolina history affect the novel – read at the FLYING HIGH blog!
Read about mining history for your fiction at Christine’s Words!
Read about the cover art by Lisa Snellings at Workaday Reads
Read the review of the book, and the guest post on keeping your series new
Read the interview at One More Chapter
Read my post about writers – and reading – at Janna Shay’s blog!
Read My post – Everybody Loves a Mystery – here in this blog!
Read my post “Let There be Magic” at the main Buy the Book Tour Site!
Read my post about “The Dark South” at The Open Book Society Blog…;
Read about Genres & Why I hate them : ==> AT THE AUTHOR’S CAFE
READ THE Guest Post about History in fiction at MELISSA’S BLOG!
Interview with me at the Blog of author Hywela Lin
Interview with Donovan DeChance at Laurie’s Thoughts and Reviews
Interview with Edgar Allan Poe at MJ Schiller’s Blog (join the discussion)
Get the details of the book tour – and the giveaways – at Buy the Book Tours…
BUY NEVERMORE! AT AMAZON.COM or BARNES & NOBLE or CROSSROAD PRESS
DOWNLOAD THE AUDIOBOOK FROM AUDIBLE.COM – NARRATED BY GIGI SHANE!