Year of the Monkey kids are quick-witted, charming, lucky, adaptable, bright, versatile, lovely and smart. May fortune gaze upon you in a comfortable manner and may all your firecrackers go off properly. Here's a list of Sino Do's and Don'ts guarantee to ensure 2016 stays on the lucky path.
Should time permit, pop over and check out the art work of the Noble Artist. On his website, Jamie Noble Frier exhibits his drawing skills in fields as diverse as board and video games and commissioned art. Or drop anchor and give his Facebook page a "Like."
I've begun working with iMovie to create my first book trailer. I've chosen Fifty Shades of Zane Grey as the initial subject. Today I finished a short script, then broke it down into picture and video, SFX, and music. Now I'm rummaging around through royalty free websites looking for the little nuggets that I'll pull together as I labor to master the basics. Exciting, but it has the feel of a labor-intensive project. But I'm anxious to see trailers have an effect on sales. Actually, I'm anxious for sales period. But better days are ahead.
The prologue for my upcoming horror novel, Hallowmass, is available for your viewing pleasure over at Goodreads. Depending on the response, I may add up to two more gratis, bargain, discount, free chapters. Here's the blurb:
Party-loving grad student Mercy O'Connor must choose to set down the mimosas and follow in her family's footsteps by learning powerful magic, the only weapon that can check the diabolical warlocks of Dunwich, Massachusetts and their scheme to see all life on the planet eradicated by monstrous beings. Aided by a country & western loving Zulu security guard, Mercy must first find the belief, then the confidence, then the courage to battle her terrifying foes and stop the earth from being drug into another dimension.
Cover art is on the way here. I'm setting the book up for pre-order on Amazon for an April 30th release. Lovecraft fans may recognize that day as Walpurgis Night, a fitting launch date for a horror novel.
A successful Kindle promo for Fifty Shades of Zane Grey concluded Monday. If you missed your chance, know that the e-version will be discounted over on Smashwords. Yes, the bargains never stop as the romantic story of young Anna Ironhead and wealthy Lash Grey may be obtained at a lower price pending the March 3 Smashwords release. As an aside, if you like reading on your phone, then Smashwords is a most friendly place.
Now on to Hallowmass. (No link yet, just italics.) Cover art is cooking away and should be ready for display quite soon. On Friday, January 29, the prologue will up up at my Goodreads page. (A link will be provided in two short days.) The story of a party girl grad student who must put down her mimosas and battle a malicious warlock for the fate of the Earth is set for an April 30th release. Ah, but you've heard that before. And well you have. But I want to take advantage of Goodreads Book Giveaway as well as the Amazon Kindle Direct Pre-Order. (Starting, I hope, in February.)
I'd rather be writing, but an unprompted book does no one any good.
Many thanks to Bookangel for their fine appraisal of Fifty Shades of Zane Grey. (I'm also the featured book at this very moment.) I'm delighted to cite their words which included:
"For. . . those who don't take 50 Shades seriously . . . this is very funny, very very silly and [the author] knows it. The story revels in it's own daftness, and the phrase 'completely cracked' came to mind several times while reading. . . . Potential audiences would be anyone who likes adult humor, anyone who wants to see Fifty Shades get skewered, and readers who like satire or parody or just downright silly books."
Fifty Shades of Zane Grey ascends in the west while rising higher in the top free eBooks on all of Kindle. This humorous Old West tale of a young woman's search for self-confidence and romance while battling multiple personalities—including an Inner Canadian Goose—has taken the world of bargain books by storm. Actually not a storm; more of a crisp rain with heavy gusts. Nonetheless, only four days remain to advantage yourself of this astounding discount. And bargain. A discount and a bargain eBook, as I've been instructed to type by SEO people.
Fifty Shades of Black Attacks
Least you think the spoofing of Fifty Shades of Grey has evaporated, Marlon Wayans will be lampooning the mega hit book and film starting next week on January 29. Funny trailer.
Amazon Category Switch to Romance/Western Boosts Downloads
That's just a guess. I switched 50ZG from Satire and Humor to the above category for my five-day free Kindle giveaway. At first, I thought it a dumb move, trying to improve my rating. But so far this first morning I'm at #116 with a bullet as they used to say in the music trade.
If you haven't read Fifty Shades of Zane Grey, now is an excellent time to obtain a free copy and enjoy the Old West tale of young Anna Ironhead, who struggles to learn that passion comes in many shades but true love is a primary color. And also that a broken heart hurts less than an Arapaho arrow.
Many thanks to the following sites for promoting 50ZG on their free Kindle lists:
Humor, passion, a love triangle—make that a love quadrangle—beset the heroine of this complicated hilarious tale set in the Old West. And if you own a fine e reader, feel free to download yourself a free copy between Thursday and Monday midnight Pacific Time Jan. 21 to the 25. If the spirit moves you, please leave a review on Amazon and Goodreads and beef up my algorithms.
Having just learned that my Kindle Direct membership ends in early February, I'm using up all my free promotional giveaway days and readers like you are the beneficiaries. Here's what I had to say over at Goodreads:
Gallup along with a free Kindle version of this romantic comedy in which shy dishwasher Anna Ironhead is courted by wealthy Old West railroad tycoon Lash Grey. Will young Anna fall for the passionate pleadings of her wealthy suitor and his mysterious Trap Room? Or will one of Anna's cowboy beaus win her heart? More laughs than lewd, this humorous romantic tale twists and turns as Anna struggles to learn that while passion comes in many shades, true love is a primary color.
Amazon is king, but what about Smashwords? This eBook distribution platform follows in the wake of the Big A, but still generates decent sales. If you must know, I'm on Smashwords and I find it a pleasant place.
Erica Verrillo lists the latest data crunched for last year and there are interesting bits of info for the eBook author. For example, Romance, Erotica, YA and Teen Fiction are the top three in fiction categories.
When not spotting Chinese subs for the Navy, the blimp is a common New Year's Day sight above Los Angeles.
Noteworthy Resolutions for 2016
Welcome to a new year, so bright and filled with promise; so clean and sparkling; not like that old bag 2015. Still, last year wasn't terrible. I completed and published my first soft cover, Fifty Shades of Zane Grey. And I concluded my first horror novel, Hallowmass. (Coming soon, really.)On this bright Los Angeles morning, the Goodyear Blimp circling to the northeast over the Rose Bowl, my thoughts turn toward improving this year's fiction output. Here are three fresh avenues:
Book Trailers
I've been wanting to try this for awhile. If nothing else, a decent trailer helps your author discoverability. The Creative Pennlists eleven steps for making your book trailer using Windows MovieMaker. They include writing out a script and using Google Key Words for your metadata.
Book Trailer Using iMovie is a short video by Felisha Melendez that walks Mac users through the process .
The Write Life by Henry Herz lists three free apps authors can employ to craft their visual pitch.
Keep an eye out for my efforts. This sounds like fun!
". . . the majority of audiobooks being produced are fiction. The average listener is 30+ years old, educated and affluent. [Recorded Books CEO Rich Freese] also said while people continue to primarily listen in cars, they 'are now listening to audiobooks on their portable devices while exercising, doing housework, and pretty much anything that you can imagine where this sort of multi-tasking is possible.'"
Naturally, Amazon make it easy for authors to convert the printed word to zeros and ones via ACX Audiobook Creation Exchange.
Author Verillo offers a slew of practical advice for fellow scribes. Browse around Publishing . . . and Other Forms of Insanity and you'll find a list of reviewers willing to read self-published material, free contests, agents open to clients, and much more.
So I've got my hands full launching my next book, marketing those already out, and learning some new skills. Hope your 2016 is shaping up to be a grand productive time.
In case you've been following along this year, there will be no Halloween, Christmas, Christmas eBook out before 2016. Such is life being married to a copy editor/managing editor who is working a a holiday job. I'm still leaning toward pitching a small press. One in particular would put out Hallowmass in eBook form, then see if it sold a hundred copies before releasing it as a soft cover. Fair enough. Strange are the ways of writing. For seven months, all I thought about was Hallowmass. Now it's fading from memory, like a torrid relationship cooling with the seasons. I will say no more on the book pre-Yule.
For a guy who never finished high school, my Dad was a tremendous reader. He'd be watching the White Sox on TV with a quart of Drewrys beer, a lit Pall Mall, and a book open in his lap, attention on the printed page during commercials. Wide-ranging in his genre tastes, Dad was fond of the science fiction of Andre Norton. And he was a avid lover of the Ace series of double paperbacks. According to AbeBooks:
"One of Ace’s biggest coups was the Ace Doubles series. These paperbacks contained two different novels that were bound together in the dos-a-dos style. Their strategy was to pair a famous writer with a lesser known one and constantly introduce readers to new literary talent. While Ace did not invent this concept, they did popularize it, and it became a fantastic marketing tool that benefited both the publisher and readers for many years. Ace published several hundred Ace Doubles in the dos-a-dos format between 1952 and 1973, and many science fiction fans have built collections around these eye-catching paperbacks."
They were basically novellas, but it was really cool to flip one over and see brand new cover art and a different story. That said, I have two novellas from my frenzy of 2013 writing. Since both stories involve hapless travelers set upon by monsters, my wife suggested they'd make a great single edition. I immediately thought of Ace Doubles. These two stories are an Ace Double. But I gather it's a production pain since you have to commission two covers and arrange the text in a just-so manner. Maybe I can't swing a double, but the two tales of a mysterious, dangerous, wider world are what I shall write next. A most Merry Christmas!
